


Denbar: Shadow Over Denbar

by lrhaboggle



Category: Original Work
Genre: Adventure, Army, Drama, F/F, F/M, Gay, Gifts, LGBT, LGBTQ, M/M, Multi, Other, Romance, War, YA, alien - Freeform, gifted, powers, queer, sci fi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-02-26 15:37:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 42,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18719998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lrhaboggle/pseuds/lrhaboggle
Summary: For about 6 years, life has been good in Denbar. But of course, when a large portion of the population consists of human-alien hybrids with special powers, the peace won't last forever. Especially not when one of the new hybrids reveals a very controversial power that may tear the entire country in half.





	1. 10 Years Later

Iris Long exhaled slowly, reveling in the cool, crisp autumn air. It was hard for her to think that she had officially been a Camp Heath soldier for 10 years now. It seemed like only yesterday she was just a bumbling apprentice with a dream... But just look at her now! 10 years later and she was a mighty soldier, acclaimed hero, wise counselor to her leader/wife of five years (already?!) and mentor to her third apprentice! He was a tiny little fellow named Princeton Cross and he, like her, was one of the Gifted of Denbar, one of the human-Bellifer alien hybrids. In fact, as incredible as the odds were, they even both had the same eye color: purple. Princeton's were a bit paler than Iris', but they were still very purple.

What differed between them in regard to their status as Gifted, then, was the actual Gift itself. Human-alien hybrids such as them weren't just blessed with the physiology of both human and Bellifer, each Gifted also had a special power as personal and unique to them as their eye color. Iris' power was the ability to decay things at will. Quite literally, if she so chose, she could destroy everything that she touched. As gloomy as such a power sounded, however, Iris took a lot of pride in her ability and saw nothing wrong with what she was capable of.

Princeton, however, could not say the same. Unlike Iris, and most of the other Gifted across Denbar, he had no clue what his Gift was. Even though he had been training long and hard under Iris for about three months now, he still didn't have the slightest inkling of what his Gift was supposed to be, and neither did anyone else who tried to see if they could figure it out for themselves.

"Are you sure I'm Gifted?!" Princeton complained as he failed yet another one of Iris' theoretical tests about how to find his Gift.

"Just calm down, Princeton," Iris responded, brought back to the present by his irritated sigh. "Have patience."

"But it's been two months, going on three!" he cried in frustration. "The only reason I even came out here at all was because I'm supposed to find my Gift, so what gives?!" he demanded, though of course, he knew that Iris didn't know either. He just couldn't help but vent a little. It was kind of demeaning to know that he was supposed to be a member of some special race with powers beyond that of a normal human, but be unable to unlock those special powers. Wasn't that the whole point of him being Gifted? To be a non-normal human? So why wasn't anything popping up?

"Nobody knows, Princeton," Iris replied calmly. "But all of us are here to help you as best we can. Maybe we haven't gotten far yet, but nobody is going to give up on you, ok?" she continued to soothe her apprentice, unbothered by his anger because she knew he didn't really mean it.

Hearing the compassion in Iris' voice relaxed Princeton at once. Although he still couldn't deny how annoying and embarrassing it was for him to not have the slightest clue about his Gift, Iris' kindness and understanding and reassuring reminded him that lashing out at her would do no one any good. He immediately felt ashamed. Iris was just so sweet and gentle that she was probably the last person who deserved to be yelled at.

"I'm sorry," he said sincerely, even hanging his head a little. "I guess I was just hoping we would've made at least a little progress. I mean, we've tried pretty much every test and technique you know!"

"But that's not many," Iris reminded him. "You have to remember that, all in all, the Gifted are still a pretty new phenomenon for Denbar. There isn't really much study out there about people like us."

And she was right. Even though Denbar had known about the existence of the Gifted for about six years now, the amount of research done on them was still relatively low. And this was not for a lack of trying, but rather, because science could be incredibly slow at times. Additionally, since the Gifted were so unlike anything else that Denbar had ever seen before, it was almost like starting up an entire new branch of science from scratch. That was bound to take time.

"Do you think they could just try and run a DNA scan on me, or something, to see what's wrong?" Princeton asked, only half serious.

"Hmmm, I don't know," Iris replied thoughtfully. "I mean, it is entirely possible to do a full DNA scan, but that still might not necessarily show us how to fix your problem. Sure, it could show us what's wrong or missing, but that doesn't tell us how to remedy it," she said.

"And that would leave us back at square one, wouldn't it?" Princeton sighed and Iris nodded sadly. "I'm just trying so hard!" he murmured.

"I know," Iris promised. "We all are. You, me, and everyone else, but sometimes, that's all we really can do, even if it doesn't seem fair or effective," she reminded him and Princeton wilted again, but he couldn't deny that Iris was right...

Hours later, Iris called an end to Princeton's training session and he was released for the evening. They still hadn't made any progress on his Gift, but since there was nothing either of them could do about it, they were both forced to take it all in stride. A couple hours after that, it was time for bed. Iris was looking forward to a good night's rest. All of this training and wondering was really exhausting, physically and mentally.

"Looks like you had fun today," a familiar voice called out to Iris as she entered the tiny wood cabin on the very edge of Camp Heath.

"Very funny, Storm," Iris replied to the voice. It was her leader, wife and co-owner of this cabin.

"I take it that Princeton hasn't found his Gift yet, then?" Storm asked next as Iris collapsed onto their bed.

"Storm, I told you I'd tell you as soon as either of us found out!" Iris replied again as she sighed and stretched.

"I know," Storm promised. "But I'm getting impatient, can't you make him go any faster?" she complained mockingly.

"Storm!" Iris repeated, but she was laughing now. "The whole camp is on pins and needles, but it's only making the poor boy even more unhappy."

"Good. Maybe it'll encourage him to move it along," Storm replied, but even through the dim light of the moon, Iris could see that trademark smirk written upon Storm's face. It was the most endearing and annoying thing Iris had ever seen.

"You _know_ that Gifts can't be forced!" the purple-eyed soldier cried. "I swear, you're incorrigible!"

"Well at least one of us is trying to be the tough one!" Storm replied playfully, joining the tiny brunette on their bed.

"Oh, whatever, it's just good to see you again," Iris hummed as she curled up beside Storm, instantly soothed by her presence.

"Likewise," Storm told the smaller, younger woman, kissing her head. "Especially since I was stuck doing paperwork!" she added dramatically.

"Oh, grow up!" Iris teased, laughing. But she understood. Nobody liked paperwork, especially not somebody as physical as Storm, but it just had to be done! She was the camp leader after all, and even Gale, her loyal deputy and oldest friend, could only do so much. And the paperwork today was perhaps some of the most important of all: it was all the files regarding the newest recruits of Camp Heath. Storm had spent the entire day reading through recruit files and matching them up with mentors and then making sure everything else was in line. It was long and boring work, but vital.

But the longer and longer Storm thought about that awful paperwork, the more and more irritated she became. Iris could feel the discontent radiating off her body, but then she got an idea. She sat up again and grinned almost wickedly.

"I know you feel bad because you missed such a lovely day over paperwork, but I think I can still make this night a bit of fun," she said.

"Oh? How so?" Storm asked, discontent turning into interest at once.

"Well, since you can't seem to figure it out from what I've said, allow me to show you," Iris teased back and Storm only grinned as Iris took a position on top of her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: So here we are. Exactly one year later and I'm starting to post my sequel story. I'll also be editing my original one, just because. Let's see how this goes! (I'm nervous and excited because this was definitely the trickiest story for me to write. Anyway, I hope anyone who reads this likes it!)


	2. Princeton Cross

On the outside, Princeton Cross didn't seem like much. He was just a normal boy living a normal life in a normal part of Denbar. The only oddity about him had been his pale purple eyes, but until the age of 11, that was all those eyes had ever been: oddities. No more, no less. But then, the truth came out about what it meant to have oddly colored eyes and, for the first time ever, Princeton finally had something special about himself that was really worth bragging about: he was one of the Gifted.

This deep truth was revealed to him when the leaders of Denbar personally called him and his family to tell them the big news and to keep him on file. They had revealed to him that the now-late leader of Camp Steuben, Grau, had created these human-alien hybrids in order to help them in their war against the Bellifers and they knew for a fact that Princeton was one of these hybrids because a picture of his face with his name on it had been found in Grau's private, underground labs.

Following the massive discovery about the Gifted, as Denbar began to study them more and more, it became law that all remaining Gifted in the country would be required to serve an apprenticeship in the army. They did not have to remain in the army forever, they just needed to go in and train under another fellow Gifted in order to find out what their power was, then they could go home. Sure, there were files on every Gifted in Denbar, but none of those files had the Gifted listed on them. This was because a Gift was never known at birth. A Gift had to develop and manifest before it could display itself and be recorded. This sort of thing usually only happened when the Gifted in question had an older counterpart to help them on that path to self-discovery. It was why Grau had always called his creations back to the army when they were old enough to fight. Even if he didn't keep them in the army full time, they needed to be in it so that they could find out what their Gifts were. Most of the Gifted left in Denbar, however, had been too young to serve in the army by the time Grau perished. Because of that, there were still quite a few Gifted left who had no clue what their Gift was. Now it was up to survivors of the war, like Iris, to teach these new Gifted what their powers were.

So then, about seven years later, at the age of 18, Princeton headed out to the nearest army recruitment center and got himself sorted into one of the four war camps. About a month after that, he was finally shipped on out to his new home.

"Are you sure you'll be ok out there?" one of his fathers, Nick, had asked as they all waited for Chief to start dismissing the masses.

"It's not like I have much of a choice," Princeton replied with a smirk, gesturing to his dark purple eyes.

"True, but your papa is just worried about you," his other father, Darton, reminded him sternly, seeing that mischievous smirk. Princeton had always been such a meek, sheepish boy that the world sometimes forgot what a spitfire could emerge from his lanky, skinny frame.

"I know, Dad," Princeton grumbled, but he proceeded to hug both of his fathers regardless. They knew he was only teasing them anyway.

"Alright, son, go say goodbye to your sisters," Darton muttered after he and Nick finally let go of him.

"Do I have to?" Princeton put on a crooked grin, earning a laugh from both of the men standing before him.

"Yes you do! I didn't come out all the way here just to be rejected by my idiot brother!" Princeton's first and oldest sister, Pearl, huffed. She was fully an adult now, aged 23 and living proudly on her own. She had needed to drive farther than anyone else to come here and, like she said, there was no way Princeton was going to go without giving her a hearty goodbye. (If Princeton had been the quiet and one, Pearl was the bossy one).

"Pearl!" Darton threw an exasperated glance at his oldest child, but Nick only chuckled to himself as he watched the exchange. He was used to the sibling rivalry and found it quite humorous, even if Darton didn't. But Pearl did finally step forward and hug Princeton, placing muscled arms gently around his skinny body and squeezing him. It was a rare moment for Pearl to be so visibly affectionate, especially to her younger brother. That made it all the sweeter when Princeton hugged back in earnest, trying to genuinely convey how glad he was that she'd come to say goodbye. The two might've spent 99% of their time fighting, but the other 1% was always full of genuine affection.

Next to come was the youngest Cross sibling: Priscilla, age 13. She was very much like Pearl: loud and proud, and large and in charge. She was very much a spitfire but, like Pearl, she really did admire Princeton and she was actually kind of jealous that he was the one with the special powers and eye colors. There were days when she had wished that she could've been the cool one. She wanted powers too, you know?!

"You'd better call," she warned Princeton, then she said no more as she took him in for a hug.

"Gross," Pearl growled with a smirk. Then she donned an innocent look as Darton elbowed her.

Priscilla, however, ignored Pearl to continue to hug Princeton, trying to memorize the way he looked and felt before he would go. Maybe it was only six months, but that was a long time for someone like Priscilla. Princeton, meanwhile, grinned as he felt Priscilla slowly squeezing him tighter and tighter. She may have tried to act tough and claim that she wouldn't miss him too terribly, but the way she clung to him said otherwise. She really was just like Pearl, so soft on the inside, no matter how calm, cool and collected her exterior was.

But at last, it was time to go and the hugging had to stop. Camp Heath recruits were boarding the subway and Princeton was one of them.

"Goodbye guys," he said, giving them each a final nod before he joined his fellow recruits and shuffled onto the next subway cart headed their way.

"Bye son!" his fathers cheered in unison. Darton felt Nick squeeze his hand and Darton squeezed back and they watched as their son fly the nest.

"Bye Prince!" Priscilla cried out frantically, waving like a madwoman as Princeton headed down to his ride.

"Later Loser!" Pearl cried with a smirk, but she was waving just as hard as Priscilla.

About two hours later, Princeton and his fellow recruits had finally arrived at Camp Heath. All at once, Princeton felt himself tremble. Even though he knew that this day had been coming, to actually be here still made him a little afraid. He had come alone to this new and sometimes violent world and he really didn't have any idea what to expect. And he was always such a quiet, submissive fellow that to come to an army, of all places, was a little bit unsettling and unnerving. How would he react to living here? And how would the others react to him?!

But it was too late to go back now. Instead, he obediently followed the crowd past the wooden gates of the camp entrance where, waiting for them in the full glare of a July sun, was a soldier with short, shaggy red hair and cyan eyes. The figure wore surprisingly casual clothes for a soldier, but Princeton wouldn't judge. If anything, the sight made him feel more relaxed. A soldier in full armor would've been a tad intimidating.

"Alright recruits, listen up!" the soldier said sharply. "I'm Avalon Maddox and I'm going to be your tour guide for today and I would like to stay off by saying welcome to Camp Heath!" then Avalon took a fancy bow and the other recruits all around began to cheer. The nervousness in Princeton doubled, yet beneath it all, he already knew he was exactly where he belonged. Even though he was still a little scared and lonely and the noise made him somewhat uncomfortable, there was a part even deeper within him that was relaxing, like he really was coming home even though this was only his very first day here.

"I think I'm going to like this place," he told himself softly, then he followed the others as they began the grand tour of camp.

If anything, the tour only solidified Princeton's good feelings about this place. But that was partly thanks to Avalon, who was an amazing tour guide. Avalon was just so friendly, funny and charming and knew how to put everyone at ease and make it feel like they'd been here a million times before. It was quite impressive, the amount of charism and good humor Avalon had, and not a single bit of it went unappreciated that day.

After the tour was dinner. Dinner was delicious, and the meal sat with a satisfying heaviness in Princeton's stomach. Then, following that, there was a chance for a bit more exploring before the curfew was set in motion. The cabins in which Princeton and the other new recruits were placed were actually quite cozy. He had expected them to be a bit breezy and uncomfortable, but they had a very nice and homey kind of feel to them. But then, right before Princeton might've fallen asleep, another tiny worry wormed its way into the back of his mind. What was going to happen to him tomorrow morning?

Although, on a literal level, Princeton knew that it was only going to be the apprentice ceremony and he would immediately be placed under the care of Iris Long (Camp Heath's head Gifted), he was still a bit nervous. Knowing who his mentor was going to be didn't mean he knew what she was like. So far, he'd only heard stories about her, but they were all very vague. He was worried that she wouldn't like him, or vice versa. Would they be able to get along? Would he be able to make her proud? What would she have him do, knowing he was a Gifted? Would she treat him differently than how she might've treated a non-Gifted soldier? Or would he panic and be too scared to even attend the apprentice ceremony tomorrow morning? There were so many questions and not a single answer and it frustrated Princeton back into the waking world.

Eventually, however, weariness finally triumphed over anxiety and, without even meaning to, Princeton began to settle back down. As pressing as all these issues were, there was literally nothing he could do except wait. It was torture to think like that but, at the same time, there was something liberating about knowing that everything that was going to happen next would be all out of his hand. Nothing that happened would be his fault because he had no control over the situation anymore. So, at last, Princeton finally slipped away into the world of sleep.

Almost eight hours later, the apprentice ceremony had started and Princeton, with all the other new recruits, sat eagerly awaiting the time when it would be their turn to stand up and meet their mentor. Princeton might've already known who his mentor was, but that didn't stop him from leaning forward nervously in his seat, waiting to hear his name get called. When it finally happened, he felt his heart jerk in his chest.

"Princeton Cross!" Storm boomed for all to hear. "Your mentor shall be Iris Long! I hope she passes down all she knows to you!" While the rest of the dining hall erupted into a polite round of applause, Princeton hopped up quickly, hoping that his nervousness wasn't showing. Iris, meanwhile, stood up far slower, a serene look in her purple eyes. Then, the moment hers locked with his, he felt himself relax a little bit, and that was the start of a beautiful friendship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: First off, thanks to Randal Flagg for following the story, and thanks for Lunar for giving it its first comment! I appreciate both of you! And another shoutout goes to penguinlover611, one of my best friends and supporters. Thanks in advance, because I know you'll follow me to the end (but that's mostly because I'll bug you if you don't, :P) You're the best!


	3. Giftless Gifted

"Nice eyes," Iris had laughed when they were finally able to speak for the first time after the apprentice ceremony finally ended.

"I like yours too," Princeton replied shyly. Purple met purple. There were only a few shades that separated them.

"Thanks," Iris changed her expression from one of amusement to one of gentleness. She could sense how nervous he was and she could only imagine how he must've been feeling at that moment. After all, Iris had been quite nervous herself on her own first day. Everyone was!

"Anyway, do you have any idea what your Gift might be?" she asked him next, nothing but pure curiosity in her voice.

"No," Princeton confessed embarrassedly, even giving her a sheepish and almost guilty smile.

"Well that's ok," Iris shrugged reassuringly, feeling bad that she'd made Princeton feel embarrassed. Her question had only been an attempt at breaking the ice. With her last apprentice, Iris had asked the same question, just to see what theories and speculations that apprentice might've had about the Gift. She hadn't asked expecting the apprentice to know the answer, and she had been correct about that. But it seemed that, with Princeton, the question had only made him feel more awkward, instead of inclined to talk about his ideas regarding what his Gift was.

"Most of us don't know right off the bat," Iris continued, trying again to put Princeton's mind at ease. "I mean, you know what they say, it can take anywhere from a week to a month! So you don't need to know right this second," she added with another casual shrug. At last, Princeton finally looked a little more relaxed as well, and he was able to smile back at Iris, but this time, it wasn't from nervousness. He felt encouraged by her words, thinking that he would find his Gift eventually, just like all the others before him. If only he knew how wrong Iris would prove to be.

Somehow, in two months, he still hadn't even managed to find an inkling, let alone a clear-cut answer. Of course, he hadn't expected to have some dramatic revelation or epiphany, but to not even find a sign or a whisper was a bit humiliating, and annoying.

"I hate this!" he grunted to himself as he continued to try physical exercise to trigger his Gift. So far, Iris had tried the tactic of direct, intense combat in hopes that the thrill of the fight would unlock something, but that failed. Then she tried a fake ambush, jump-scaring him on his way from the dining hall. The "scare it out of him" tactic failed too. Then Iris tried more physical suffering, hoping that maybe if she put him through enough pain or fear or duress, something else would happen. This was an endurance/stamina tactic as opposed to a direct aggression and brutality tactic. But both were equally ineffective. Then at last, Iris even tried having Princeton do different kinds of bodily motions, such as waving his hands and arms as she sometimes would when trying to decay something, but still nothing happened.

The only other Gifted that had taken anywhere near as long as Princeton to find a Gift was Avalon Maddox. As Princeton learned through his time with Avalon, ey had the Gift of ice manipulation, but it had taken em that whole first month to figure it out, and even then, the discovery had been completely accidental. It all happened on one particularly hot day after ey had gotten finished with a rather brutal sparring session with Iris. Ey had been sweating so hard that ey began to wish that ey could cool down at least a little bit and, to eir surprise, the wish was granted. Suddenly, the air around em had felt a little bit colder and ey stopped sweating. That first sudden and unexplainable drop in temperature had been Avalon's first clue as to what eir Gift was and the rest was history. Sure, it had nearly a month, but ey got it done eventually.

Iris' first apprentice had already known what her Gift was when she'd come to Iris properly, but that was because she had been one of the three youngsters that Grau had enlisted early to help in the final battle. It was Artimanna Mazce, with a Gift in water manipulation. Since she had already known what her Gift was by the time she reached Iris' service, all that Iris really had to do with her was just to teach her how to use, control and hone it better. Additionally, since she was the first Camp Heath Gifted aside from Iris, she was also the most experienced though, unlike Iris or even Avalon, she had chosen to go home after training. She still stayed in contact with all her friends at Camp Heath, but a soldier's life really was not the life for her. Avalon, however, had actually grown quite attached to eir post in the army and had, unlike Artimanna, enlisted full time after the mandatory apprenticeship was done.

"But what about me?" Princeton had asked after about a month and a half. "Even Avalon found eir Gift before me! And I'm so far behind in comparison to where ey was by now! What's my Gift? Why can't any of us get it to come out? I don't want to be a Giftless Gifted!" he cried.

"We still don't know, Princeton, we still don't know," Iris sighed, both in pity and annoyance. This issue frustrated her just as much as it did him. But because it seemed that, so far, there was no way to speed up or forcibly awaken a dormant Bellifer gene, Iris and Princeton were both forced just to continue the apprenticeship as if Princeton was 100% human.

"Sorry my dude, maybe something went wrong with your Gift genetically," Avalon said one day, patting the smaller Gifted pityingly.

"Thanks, Avalon. That was so reassuring to hear…" Princeton deadpanned, but he knew Avalon meant well. Princeton had come to see Avalon as an older sibling in the short time that they had known each other and it didn't help that Avalon shared a lot of traits with Pearl, save that Avalon was more goofy and less bossy. Where Pearl might've affectionately called him a loser for being a Giftless Gifted, Avalon just told him to suck it up and come to terms with his mediocrity. Besides, at least he still had the cool eyes. Right?

"Hey, well, maybe you're like Oliver!" Avalon suggested next as Princeton continued to sulk. "You know she was supposed to be Gifted too, but something went wrong with her, so she's kind of a Hybrid Hybrid now, you know? Maybe it's like that!" ey seemed quite pleased with eir theory, totally missing the look of displeasure that crossed Princeton's face. He had heard that Oliver was a very kind and peppy soul and knew that it should be a compliment to be compared to her, but it still angered and stung Princeton a little on the inside to think that he might be like her: a Giftless Gifted. It still bothered him to think Avalon considered him just as much of a mistake as Oliver, even though Oliver was a wonderful person. Besides, that was where they differed. While Oliver was genuinely and totally unbothered by her lack of a Gift, Princeton wanted nothing more than to have his. It wasn't a matter of popularity or fitting in, though, it was just simple, raw curiosity. And that curiosity burned fiercely.

Maybe it was true that Princeton was suffering a case like Oliver's, but that didn't mean he had to be happy about it. He wanted his case to be more like Iris' than Oliver's, as wonderful as both of the two women were. But things weren't looking good. And since no one could do anything about it, Princeton forced himself to resign to the fact that he might be entirely normal. His only consolation came in the hope that maybe someday, someone would find out what was wrong with him. After all, the study of the Gifted was still a relatively new field. There was time for more discovery. And as long as that time remained, so did Princeton's hope.

"Let's just go back to training," he suggested to Avalon that day after Avalon's "motivational" speech.

"Whatever you say, buddy" Avalon replied pityingly, trying hard not to use eir Gift in front of Princeton in case it upset him. Iris watched the exchange from afar with a sad smile, touched by their friendship, but pitying Princeton's confusion about his identity. Like him, she also hoped that he wasn't a Giftless Gifted, but since no studies could give any answer, she began to accept it as an option and continued to train him like a normal soldier. At least things were peaceful…


	4. The Fall of Camp Greene

Sometime during the middle of October, however, all of Denbar received a very rude awakening. The day itself began well, but during dinner hours, the sounds of screaming and panicking erupted from outside the Camp Heath dining hall and it sounded like a full-scale invasion.

"What in Denbar!?" Storm snarled the moment the screaming started. Everyone was inside the dining hall, so whoever it was screaming outside was _not_ a Camp Heath soldier. She hopped to her feet at once, grabbing a nearby knife before striding boldly to the door. Gale, her deputy, wasted no time in following her lead. Behind them both, Iris' eyes began to glow as she readied herself to destroy any threat that dared set foot inside.

All the other soldiers started doing likewise. Forks were dropped and fists were raised as they, though unarmed, prepared to fight. Once Storm reached the doors, she threw them open with a threatening and fearsome snarl. What she saw, however, quickly turned that snarl into an expression of complete and utter shock. It was the entirety of Camp Greene, and it looked like they had been chased all the way there.

The story of the fall of Camp Greene spread like wildfire throughout Camp Heath as all the soldiers were quickly called upon to tend to their wounded friends from the northern war camp. From what it sounded like, Camp Greene had been seeing a few Bellifers here and there of late but, being the prideful fools that they were, they had not felt like they needed to warn anyone else of these sightings.

"We thought there were only a few of them, and that they would never dare attack!" the leader of Camp Greene, Tanya Banks, cried.

"But apparently we were wrong," her wife, Angelina Winters, muttered darkly. "They attacked when we were least expecting it and tore us to shreds, literally," she held up one of her arms, which had been badly wounded. So not only had the camp been ambushed during a vulnerable time, but the number of attackers had been higher than expected and, because of their own stubbornness, Camp Greene had still refused to call for help.

It was only when they began to lose badly enough that they finally realized that they were in trouble but, by then, it was too late to try and call for backup anyway. No one would have been able to reach them in time. After that, the battle quickly became a retreat. All the soldiers carefully maneuvered their way out of camp and onto the subway carts, immediately heading to Camp Heath in the south, which was the farthest point away from their camp up north.

"So here we are now," Tanya sighed angrily. It was clearly a huge blow to her ego to have to confess how stupid she and the rest of Camp Greene had been. And the defeat was crushing both in the physical sense and the emotional. Too many lives had been lost because of Camp Greene's folly. The only positive was the fact that they had managed to at least send a message out to Denbar's leaders before fleeing so that the rest of the country would at least be aware that this attack had happened. But other than that, there hadn't been very many upsides to that day.

But while Tanya and Angelina spoke with Storm and Gale, other soldiers across the camp were busy helping each other get to safety. Iris, herself, had since reunited with her fellow Gifted from Camp Greene.

"Edward! Iskala! Quincy!" Iris' relieved shout echoed the nighttime sky and three pairs of eyes, clear, pink and dark orange, turned in her direction.

"Iris!" the trio echoed her call before running towards her. What ensued was an affectionate and relieved greeting.

"Thank goodness you guys are ok!" Iris said as she gleefully embraced her three fellow Gifted. She looked at Edward in particular when she said this, her fondness for him being the strongest just because they had known each other the longest. He had been one of the three Gifted Grau had called in to join the army early so that Denbar's army would have more Gifted soldiers in the final battle of the war.

"We were the last to leave along with Tanya and Angelina," Edward answered and Iris understood immediately. Of course! The Gifted were always the last to leave a dangerous situation! This was because they were the most resilient, and the most likely to survive a deadly encounter. This was an unspoken rule amongst them all, but Iris had forgotten about that in a moment of panic.

"I'm sorry," she said. "But when I didn't see you guys at first among the masses, I assumed the worst."

"Well, Iskala did come close," Edward tried to input some levity into their chatter, grinning playfully at his ex-apprentice. "She nearly had her face seared off when one of those cursed fiends managed to set one of our cabins on fire!"

"It wasn't that close of a call!" Iskala protested indignantly. Although she was covered in scorch marks, nothing looked too serious.

"Well, we still managed to get her out in time either way," Edward continued to joke gently with her, grinning. She gave him a disgusted sigh.

Although Iskala was fond of Edward and grateful for his help back during that surprise attack, she hated the fact that such a stunt had been necessary at all. Iris could quickly tell that Iskala was the kind of girl who didn't like being helped, lest she be seen as weak or incapable.

 _Now where have I seen that before?_ Iris asked herself in amusement as a vision of Storm passed through her mind. Iskala was a good kid, no doubt, but she was going to need to work on lowering her hero-complex a little bit.

"Would you like me to escort you to our hospital?" Iris asked her finally. Though she hadn't suffered anything serious, she did still need _some_ care.

"No, the others need to be tended to first," she insisted passionately. Behind her, Edward gave a dry and knowing grin.

"As you wish," Iris replied then, masking her own little smile as Iskala continued to stand with a flashing eye and a raised chin.

While Iris and the others tended to the injured, Storm, Gale, Tanya, Angelina and Barry were all locked in conversation in Storm's private office. Angelina's arm had been put into a makeshift cast. She swore that she would get proper care later. This conference was more important.

"What bothers me most is how sudden it was!" Tanya sighed angrily, running tired fingers through wild hair. "The numbers shouldn't have been nearly that high compared to what they were seeing and they all just kind of appeared, right out of nowhere! We didn't see them coming or hear them coming or anything! No warning, just war."

"Yeah, one minute, everything was totally chill, but then BAM!" Barry waved his giant, muscular arms to emphasize his statement. Half of his blond goatee had been seared off in the same fire Iskala nearly got caught in. It looked quite comical, but now was not the time for jokes.

"It was really that quick?" Gale was genuinely concerned, though it was clear that he believed every word his fellow deputy was saying.

"Yes!" Barry nodded. "We literally went from a normal day to suddenly seeing a swarm of those freaks just coming at us from the Westside Cliffs! It was dumb luck alone that we were able to get into any sort of fighting stance!" the man broke off to explain the tactics he'd used.

"Barry! Save that for later!" Tanya interrupted, managing to collect some of her thoughts in the time Barry spoke. "We can talk about battle strategy later. What we need now is regrouping strategy," she turned her black eyes to Storm, finally stopping running her fingers through her hair. The dark braids looked more like frayed wires than cornrows and some of the golden bands that used to hold the ends together were missing.

"What should we do first?" she asked of Storm.

"I think I'm going to send out some patrols right now in case they followed you," Storm replied slowly. "If they had enough numbers and cunning to pull off such an attack, who's to say we aren't next? And of course we need to warn the other camps!"

"Then who will be going?" Gale asked before anyone else could even open their mouths. As deputy, it was his job to organize these sorts of things and if it was a patrol Storm wanted, it was a patrol she'd get! All she needed to do was ask!

"I'm just going to send out a bunch of small patrols. Maybe 10, each containing three or four soldiers," Storm replied, still thinking hard. "It'll just be to scan the perimeter and see if anything's out there. If not, we won't worry about it tonight. To be quite honest, I can't imagine them trying a second attack within mere hours of the first. I'm sure they'd want to gloat over their victory first. But still, a patrol or two will never hurt. But like I said, if nothing comes up, we can wait to do more active things when the sun comes back out. For now, we just need to secure the camp and give ourselves time to care for you," Storm trailed off to meet Tanya's eyes again.

"We thank you heartily," the leader of Camp Greene bowed to the leader of Camp Heath. "Your kindness is something we can't repay."

"Don't be silly," Storm gave the other leader a wry smile. "I'm not like most other leaders that will demand a favor in return, or insist that it was only a soldier's duty to protect her comrades. I'll tell you that you can repay me by allowing me first crack at any Bellifer that dares cross us!" she gave them all a dark smile that they returned. Classic Storm. Always so hungry for action and heroics. Even if she had mellowed out over the years and become more socially open and gentle, she was still the same warrior of old. That much would never change.

"Yeah, I think we can work something out," Barry grinned, cracking his knuckles. He liked the way Storm thought!

"Perfect," Storm grinned right back. "But for now, we've got a few patrols to start."

"And I get dibs on that," Angelina spoke for the first time since the little meeting began, a savage smile painting her own face. Although many considered her as the calmer, cooler, wiser side to Tanya's passionate and emotional fieriness, Angelina could still be very active, especially in the face of combat. She was the most beaten up of her trio, but she still wanted to be the first one back out in the field. She didn't care that one of her arms was in a cast, she would fight one-handed if necessary. She just refused to miss out on anything big or important.

"Yeah, I think we can work something out," Gale smiled at her and she smiled back.

A few minutes later, then, just as planned, 10 patrols were sent out. Gale, Barry, Tanya, Angelina, Storm and all the Gifted were among the chosen patrollers while everyone else stayed behind to protect the wounded and secure the camp. Those who went out on patrol carried radars and flashlights with one hand and then swords and weapons with the other. As low as the odds were for combat, no one was going to risk it. It didn't even matter that each patrol was made up of three or four soldiers, no one wanted to have a nighttime battle with a giant, hungry Bellifer.

Or at least, _most_ of the patrols were made up of three or four. Only one was made up of two, and that one belonged to Storm and Iris.

"I'm guessing that wasn't just dumb luck?" Iris grinned dryly as she came to realize that hers was the only patrol without a third or fourth member.

"What? You're crazy. That's just how the numbers evened out," Storm said, but Iris could see her grinning in the dim light of her flashlight.

"Ugh, a married tag-team, how cliché!" Iris rolled her purple eyes, but she was smiling.

"What can I say? It's the _original_ team!" Storm grinned back, nudging the smaller, younger soldier playfully.

"You're crazy," Iris repeated with a smirk, but there was genuine love in her voice. There was nothing she loved more than going into missions or battles with Storm at her side. This was just like the old days! It really was a nice throwback, despite the unsettling circumstance. Things had just been so quiet for so long that the tiny brunette almost forgot what it felt like to share this type of intimacy with her wife. It was something different from the intimacy they shared between the sheets, but it was no less powerful.

But that was what made things so unsettling. It _had_ been quiet for so long. So what was with the big change now? And just how long had this attack been planned? And was there a follow-up on the moonlit horizon? As these thoughts floated through Iris' head, her tone became serious.

"Do you really think we'll be attacked tonight?" she asked Storm as they continued to scour the Camp Heath borders. In the distance, Iris could see tiny pinpricks of light coming from the flashlights of other patrollers.

"No," Storm replied. "If they did, they'd have to run down here and that would take them far too long."

"But it's a possibility," Iris reminded Storm. "Especially if we have some hiding out in our borders too."

"Yes," Storm agreed. "But that's still an unlikely odd that they'll try anything tonight. Like I said earlier, why would they ask for another fight so soon? And sure, let's assume that these freaks are somehow hiding out in Camp Heath, I'm assuming they'd want to wait for some official signal from the group up north, but they probably won't get that signal because the ones up north are too busy celebrating."

"Well maybe that's how they'd celebrate," Iris replied. "By having any potential Bellifers down here try and attack us to get another victory!"

"But remember, we have all of Camp Greene down here with us," Storm reminded. "I don't think the Bellifers would want to try and take on two camps at once, you know what I mean? So I still don't think anything will happen to us tonight."

"But what about the other camps?" Iris pressed, trying to evaluate every potential threat.

"They're on alert too," Storm calmly shot down every single one of Iris' theories. "Tanya and Angelina already sent out distress calls to every location in Denbar. The entire country has its defenses up. Sure, an attack is still possible, but it won't be very easy, and this time, we'll have time to mobilize in case we _do_ hear from somewhere else that our assistance is needed."

"Very well," Iris finally allowed Storm's arguments to sway her worried mind. Although she could not totally erase the concern of a surprise attack here in Camp Heath tonight, she was beginning to see where Storm was coming from. The odds of another Bellifer attack by any group in any location was low just because Denbarian defenses and alerts would now be so high. Besides, if Storm's soldiering logic wasn't trustworthy enough, which it was, Iris had her own little failsafe of sorts...

Because Iris was part Bellifer herself, she had the strange ability to sense when Bellifers were around. Additionally, she already had heightened human senses, so even if she lacked that special ability to sense when a Bellifer was near, her own eyes and ears were strong enough to pick up on things that a normal human might miss. With both her human and Bellifer senses going strong, Iris continued to peer through the darkness in attempt to find even the slightest hint of a threat. Nothing came of it at all. Storm was right, they were safe. For now.

"Then tonight, we shall focus solely on recovery," Storm said after the last patrol got back and confirmed that there was no immediate danger to Camp Heath. "But I'm thinking that, tomorrow, I will take a small squad up to Camp Greene directly so that we can get a clear view of what happened and what we are up against. We can plan our next steps after that. But right now, like I said before, the most important thing is making sure everyone is safe, and receiving all the medical care that they need. Am I understood?"

"Yes ma'am!" the patrollers saluted their leader.

"Good," Storm nodded at them. "Then go!" and obediently, they all dispersed throughout Camp Heath once more, quickly making themselves useful wherever help was needed.

Although the idea of trying to go back up to Camp Greene was somewhat frightening, it was their best bet on figuring out how on earth any of this had happened, and just what exactly they were dealing with, even if it wasn't going to be a pretty answer. Storm threw one last wary look over her shoulder as she led the patrollers back through the wooden gates of Camp Heath. She could see nothing in that outer darkness except an endless sky of stars and an endless forest of trees. But who knew what could be lurking in the shadows just beyond her vision?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: So, something exciting is finally happening, and yes, I changed the aliens' name from Noctifer to Bellifer. It might make more sense closer to the end of this story. For now, however, just go with it.


	5. The Mission North

Just as promised, the rest of the night was spent mainly in the hospital, helping fix up the survivors. Since the injuries were worse than expected, Storm's planned mission north was put off for a few days. After those few days passed, however, the mission north commenced. It was a risky operation, but not a single soldier was afraid. On the contrary, practically every soldier from both camps tried to volunteer to go on the quest. Whether it was a desire for vengeance, knowledge, reassurance or a satiated curiosity didn't matter. All Storm knew was that she had not expected so many soldiers to volunteer for the mission north.

"Easy! Easy!" she demanded of both camps when they all begged to come along. "I've already made my choice and I can tell you for sure that it won't be any of you!" her words were harsh, but true. She was intending upon bringing the leading trio from Camp Greene, some of the older Gifted, and then herself, of course. She was leaving Gale behind, but only so he could try and control the masses while she and the others were gone. The younger Gifted were charged with helping him maintain that order.

"Why do you get to go on all the fun quests while I'm stuck here babysitting?" Gale complained the morning Storm started the mission.

"Because I'm the leader and I said so," the blond replied without missing a beat, smirking at the pout Gale offered her in return. "Besides, I need _someone_ to stay back in case we never return. I need my heir here so he can take over if needed."

"As if!" Gale scorned. "You know you'll be fine, you're bringing some of Denbar's best!"

"But still, you _are_ the deputy. Taking over when I'm away is in the job description," Storm reminded. "And of course we're the best! Why do you think I'm not inviting you? Can't have you mucking things up!" Storm continued to tease Gale mercilessly. They'd been best friends for about 20 years now, so Storm pretty much considered it a right of hers to tease Gale as often and as hard as she wished. They were practically siblings!

"Lucky jerk," Gale replied, sticking his tongue out at her.

"I'll bring back some heads as souvenirs!" she replied mockingly, then she bade him farewell and he watched her go with a sad smile.

Although Gale didn't doubt that Storm would return, he would still worry every moment until she'd come home to him again. They had been friends for so long, after all, and Gale could scarcely imagine a life without Storm. And even now, six years later, he still had yet to fully accept the death of his wife, Tempest. His face contorted in pain as he thought about her, but when the sounds of soldiers calling his name finally reached his head, he shook himself awake. As much as he missed and loved Tempest, nothing would ever bring her back and she wouldn't want him to waste away in grief. Instead, she would tell him to get his butt in gear and lead, so he would.

So while Gale turned back to Camp Heath to act as its temporary leader, Storm and her crew rode the subway up to the north.

"So, what's the plan?" Iskala was the first to ask as the two-hour ride began. Her pink eyes were intense and serious, her back was straight and her ears were open, ready to heed any command given to her. She looked like a mini Storm, Iris observed. Or at least, she did in mannerism. Her physical appearance was a bit different. She was not nearly as tall as Storm and her skin was paler than Storm's tanned tone. As was her blond hair, which almost seemed white where Storm's was gold. And of course, her eyes were pink and not blue. But they had the same razor sharp focus and deadly determination. Iris wondered if Storm noticed it too. Iskala was going to be a very brave and heroic soldier one day…

"Well, if the camp is quiet and empty, I intend on taking a look around," Storm began. "But if the Bellifers have _not_ gone back into hiding and are still roaming the camp freely, I think we're just going to take a quick count from the subway. Either way, this is only a scouting mission."

"What?! Where's the fun in that?" Iris crossed her arms and gave a joking pout. "I thought we were gonna bust some heads!"

"Not if the whole camp is infested," Storm replied warningly. Iris got the message loud and clear.

"But if it's not?" it was clear Barry was just as keen as Iris to fight.

"Then maybe we'll try get a few," Storm allowed. "But this is still mainly a scouting mission!" she repeated over Barry and Iris' excitement.

"Yes, Storm," the two proceeded to mellow out as Storm glared fiercely at them, daring them to try and defy her will. Tanya, Angelina, Edward and Iskala were all more subdued and obedient, open entirely to the idea of keeping this mission scouting-only. Sure, they all wanted revenge just as badly as anyone else, but pride and arrogance had been their first downfall. It would do no good to make that same mistake again. Instead, the mission north would have to be more based on tactic. Revenge could not be rushed. Not if it was to work…

"This place sure could use a patching job," Iris joked weakly as she and her friends stepped out of the subway and into the ruins of Camp Greene. The once proud and mighty camp was in shambles and ashes. The sun's light seemed harsh and whenever the autumn wind blew, something would creak. The sturdy foundation of the camp had been broken. The place was no longer beautiful or strong. Instead, it already looked like a ghost town, even though it had been less than a week since the evacuation. There was no motion except for whatever was swaying beneath the wind's power. There was no life. No Bellifers. The whole camp was dead silent and empty. Half the buildings were smashed and half were on their way. Dirt and blood coated uneven and cracked roads and the air was thick with the smell of battle, though it was devoid of the sound of life.

"You're telling me," Edward sounded bitter, though he wasn't mad at Iris. It just pained him deeply to see his home so ruined. It hurt his pride and ego to see his beautiful camp as nothing more than a graveyard of ash and bone. He grit his teeth in frustration as he took in the damage. It had been hard to see during that ambush. Now he was getting the pleasure of seeing it all in a slower, calmer, quieter time. It wasn't pretty. Tanya and Angelina were both silent with guilt and grief as their own dark eyes took in the ruins of their beautiful home. They both instantly felt like failures even though they were not to blame. Six years of peace would soften even the hardest of soldiers, as evident by this ambush. That didn't quell their guilt or tears, however, and they could barely look at one another as they surveyed the remains of what used to be their leader cabin where they'd shared so many days and nights together. Now it was nothing but rubble, splattered in blood and the remains of human and alien alike.

"So what do we do first?" Iskala asked, breaking the silence at last as anger burned in her pink eyes as she looked to the ruins.

"We sneak in, make observations, then go," Storm replied with a deep breath. With that, she took out a radar she'd packed for the trip and offered it to Barry, who would lead them in and scan for trouble. Meanwhile, she unsheathed her wicked blade, reveling in the soft scraping sound it made as she pulled it out. Iris and the others mirrored the movement, more pleasant metal-on-metal noises echoing softly as every soldier prepared for battle. This may not have been a combat mission, but if push came to shove, they were going to fight. The camp might've been barren, but if the Bellifers were around, no one would dare let their guard down even for a second, especially not since their first attack of surprise had proven so successful. Nobody wanted to fall for the same trick twice. So with Barry in the lead, everyone else followed after, eyes and arms raised and ready. Three pairs of eyes glowed brightly as the group continued to explore the Camp Greene ruins.


	6. Quincy Husk

Although Storm's trip to the ruins had involved several of the Gifted, three stayed behind. Those three were Avalon Maddox, Princeton Cross and Quincy Husk. The reason Avalon was staying behind was to help Gale run camp. In addition, as strong as Avalon was, eir ice Gift was still not strong enough to be useful in a battle as dangerous as what the Bellifers could cook up. Besides, ey was known for being very hyper and loud, which was not a good fit for a stealth mission. No doubt, Avalon would be bored enough by the idea of just walking through a camp that ey would try and start a fight just for fun. It was best if ey stayed home, so ey did, spending the whole day at Gale's side and pretending to be a deputy in eir own right, taking much pleasure in bossing everyone around. However, ey led with such playfulness and verve that not a single soldier under eir care would've considered em a tyrant. They found Avalon quite endearing, and Gale welcomed the help, so it seemed Avalon was there to stay, at least until the others came home.

As for the latter two, Princeton and Quincy, they stayed behind because they were fartoo young and inexperienced to be allowed on such a serious mission. Princeton wasn't much of a Gifted right now and Quincy, himself, was still fairly new to it all as well. He knew what his Gift was, but it still wasn't very powerful yet. His power was fear manipulation, strange as that sounded. He could instill a sense of unnatural nervousness and terror into the hearts of his enemies, but that would be of no help on a stealth mission where the goal was _not_ to confront the enemy. The only reason Iris, Iskala and Edward had gone ahead was because even though their own Gifts weren't much better for a stealth mission, they were more experienced soldiers. But even though there was a rational reason for leaving Quincy and Princeton behind, neither boy liked it.

"It's not fair!" Quincy had huffed. It was somewhat comical to see such a large and beefy boy acting like someone 15 years younger, but Princeton had to admit that he understood Quincy's frustration. Although he was always a rather meek and shy boy, even Princeton had to admit that he had wanted to go on the mission north because he was just as curious as anyone else about what the camp really looked like now. He didn't like being stuck back home at Camp Heath any more than Quincy did.

"Just because I'm new doesn't mean I'm useless! I have the Gift of Fear after all!" he added angrily.  
"Well maybe that's why they didn't want you along," Princeton said. Quincy shot him a dark orange death glare and Princeton quickly amended his words before Quincy could try using his Gift on him.

"I didn't mean that as an insult!" he insisted. "I meant that since this is a scouting mission, your Gift of instilling fear wouldn't be used!"

"Unless there were Bellifers!" Quincy rolled his dark orange eyes, but as much as he hated to admit it, Princeton had a point. Iris could decay living and nonliving, Edward could harden his skin into armor, and Iskala had telekinesis. Every Gift they had was one that could be used in escape and defense. Fear instillation wouldn't be of much help, especially given that it wasn't too strong yet. And as far as anyone else knew, Princeton didn't have a Gift at all. So Storm hadn't exactly been wrong to leave the two of them behind.

"I still wish we could help, though," Quincy added next.

"We could help your comrades," Princeton suggested, pointing back towards the heart of Camp Heath. The two were currently exploring the training forest together alone since Avalon had pretty much made emself deputy for the day.

"Yeah, but I meant more frontlines kind of help," Quincy said. "Besides, they're all pretty stable now. There isn't much left for us to do," he added. He was correct in this remark too. Most of the work that still needed to be done on the Camp Greene soldiers was the type of work that only a medical professional could do now. The time for basic first aid was over and the time for real medicine and surgery had come. This was something that neither Princeton nor Quincy were familiar with.

"I see what you mean," Princeton agreed, Quincy's desire for action bleeding into him. "But if you want, we can at least go practice," he offered. Although nothing had happened yet, he wasn't dumb enough to believe these Bellifers would be defeated without combat. There was no way they'd be content with only taking Camp Greene. They would be back for sure, and when that day came, every sword would need to be sharp. Quincy seemed to see the same logic and a wicked grin split his face.

"Sounds like a plan!" he rumbled happily, then he and Princeton raced over to a sector of the training forest where the weapons were held.

For awhile, the training went very well. Fighting Quincy felt like fighting an equal even though Quincy was bigger and broader than Iris and Avalon combined. He was a very muscled individual. Princeton was still a tad jealous that Quincy had a Gift, but somehow, seeing Quincy use his didn't make him feel as jealous as when Iris or Avalon used their Gifts. Perhaps, though, this was because Quincy's Gift was fear-based. Princeton wasn't going to feel hurt if Quincy decided _not_ to show off his Gift during their little sparring match. But Quincy and Princeton didn't just trade blows out there in the training forest. They also traded stories about their lives.

Princeton learned that Quincy had come from a home like his, except that he had four brothers, two mothers and a father instead of two sisters and two fathers. That meant that the Husk House was always very loud and active. Quincy was the fifth and youngest child, and the third to be adopted, the first and third children being the only ones genetically related to any of their parents. Quincy had adored the place, leaving only because of the law regarding the Gifted, though one of his other brothers had come along too. This brother, however, wound up in Camp Reed instead of Camp Greene or Heath. Quincy had been a little bit disappointed by this but, at the same time, it didn't really surprise him. This brother had actually served in the previous Bellifer War and, back then, he had been in Camp Reed, so it was no surprise to anyone that he was re-sorted into Camp Reed after returning this second time around. In addition, one of Quincy's mothers had also served in the army, though she had not returned after the war officially ended.

"Cool," Princeton said, deflecting a blow from Quincy's sword before talking about his own family life. Unlike Quincy, not a single one of his family members had ever been to war. In addition, even though his household comprised of two fathers and three children, Princeton's life wasn't anywhere near as loud and exciting as Quincy's. On the contrary, Princeton felt quite plain and boring in comparison to Quincy, and the thought made him blush embarrassedly, despite Quincy showing genuine interest in all that Princeton said.

Then slowly, the talk turned from past to present.

"I wonder how the others are," Quincy said, envy creeping into his voice again.

"They should be back soon," Princeton replied, unsure of what else to say as he sensed Quincy's irritation return.

"Lucky them," he remarked. "I mean, even though my Gift isn't defensive, I'm still not a newbie so it wasn't really warranted for them to leave me behind. I'm a good soldier!" he puffed his chest indignantly and Princeton stifled a laugh. "They could've taken me! I could've helped somehow!" he continued to complain to Princeton.

"I agree with that," he said and this soothed Quincy somewhat. "But remember, they were only doing this to protect you," he added.

"Well I'd rather die beside my friends than live alone!" Quincy retorted bitterly. "I know they left me behind for my own good, but it still sucks!"

"Why don't we go exploring some more?" Princeton asked, changing the subject and hoping to cheer Quincy up some.

"Alright, why not?" Quincy replied. It was clear that being left behind still bothered him greatly, but the prospect of going on an adventure at least offered a distraction from all of that. "Where did you want to go first?"

After an indefinite amount of time, Quincy and Princeton reached a very far off and isolated part of the training forest.

"I've never been here before!" Princeton remarked.

"Doesn't look like anyone else has either," Quincy added, gesturing to all the loose and wild foliage. If this had been a proper training area, it would've been much cleaner. The fact that plants and wildlife were abundant here meant that this was not an area usually used by humans.

"Well, I guess we just didn't need all the space," Princeton suggested, looking all around at the beautiful nature surrounding him. Although he supposed that it made sense that there would be parts of Camp Heath that he would never see, he couldn't deny some level of surprise at finding a new area that he hadn't managed to stumble across before.

"It really is beautiful," he murmured as he continued to walk idly through the empty section of camp. Quincy was only a few paces behind him, looking similarly awed and interested. Suddenly, then, the ground vanished from beneath Princeton's feet and he didn't even have time to scream out before he found himself free-falling into darkness.


	7. Maggie Mariner

The first thing Princeton was aware of was a pain all over his body. Nothing felt broken, but everything felt very jostled and bruised. The second thing he was aware of was of Quincy, panicking above him and screaming down at him.

"Princeton?! Princeton?! Are you there?!" he demanded. Finally, Princeton managed to find his voice.

"Yeah! I'm alright!" he shouted back up. He managed to unsteadily pull himself up to his feet, wincing as he did so.

"What happened?!" Quincy demanded next.

"What does it look like?" Princeton shouted back up at him with just a hint of annoyance. He pressed a hand to the hole wall. It was smooth. It wasn't going to be an easy climb up, unless Quincy could get help or throw down a-

Before Princeton could even finish his thought, Quincy made the fatal mistake of trying to lean further over the hole to get a better look inside at Princeton. Naturally, he went end over end and tumbled inside right after Princeton.

"NOOO-" Princeton's shout was cut off midcry as Quincy landed hard right on top of him.

"Oh, oops," Quincy groaned in pain as he rolled off of Princeton as fast as he could. "Urgh. Sorry, buddy," he helped Princeton back up again.

"It's fine," Princeton replied through another wince.

Once the two boys had suitably brushed themselves off, though, the pain quickly turned into fear.

"Where are we?" Quincy was the first to ask. "Is this part of the training forest?" but he already knew the answer to that. Princeton only shrugged in reply, having since returned his gaze upward. He hadn't realized how deep the hole was until he looked up again and realized that it was far taller than him or Quincy combined. A dull flash of fear ran through his veins as he realized that neither he nor Quincy would be able to climb out. Not when the walls of the hole were so smooth...

Wait! What? Princeton's dark purple eyes widened with the sudden realization that the walls of the hole were smooth. But why? Why would a random hole out in the middle of the forest have smooth sides? And how?! Right before he could ask this question to Quincy, however, Quincy cried out, having made an epiphany of his own.

"Look!" he shouted and Princeton turned to see Quincy peering intently at one part of the hole. Quickly narrowing his own eyes, Princeton followed Quincy's gaze. He felt his blood run cold. This wasn't just a hole, it was a tunnel! And from the look of it, it was not a naturally occurring tunnel either. Upon closer inspect of the tunnel's walls, Princeton could see marks that looked like they had come from claws, teeth, fingers and multiple other animalistic body parts. Worst of all, though, the tunnel looked fresh. Clearly, whatever had created such a feat was still very nearby. That realization, coupled with the one about the hole walls being eerily smooth, sent both boys into a panic.

"What do we do!?" Princeton whisper-yelled as he swiftly backed away from the tunnel, not that he was able to go very far.

"I don't know!" Quincy whisper-yelled back, just as terrified as Princeton.

"Can we get out?! Will anybody find us?! Is there anything else down here with us?! What are we gonna do?!" Princeton continued to freak out while Quincy's own voice had since stopped working altogether. All he could do was shake his head in silent terror.

At last, however, Quincy managed to find his voice once again.

"We aren't going to do any good if we just stand here and panic!" he insisted urgently. "So let's just go and see if we can find another way out!"

"Are you mad?!" Princeton practically wheezed as Quincy dared to take a step _towards_ the large and foreboding tunnel.

"Do you have a better idea?" Quincy shot back. "Would you rather wait until something found _us_?" and with no answers to give, Princeton could only give one last longing look upward before following Quincy through the tunnel and even deeper into the darkened underground.

After what seemed like an eternity, Quincy and Princeton found themselves at what appeared to be a crossroads where three tunnels branched off into the darkness before them. It was a literal fork in the road and neither boy had the slightest clue where any of the tongs would lead.

"Now what?" Princeton whimpered. He had managed to calm down a little bit after being able to walk through most of the tunnel without running into anything, but this fork in the road had sent his anxiety skyrocketing again. Quincy, meanwhile, struggled to stay calm. He inspected the entryways to each of the three tunnels. The one on the right seemed the oldest.

"We're going right," Quincy replied and he strode bravely forward, leaving Princeton to scramble nervously after.

The duo managed to walk for another good chunk of time before they suddenly heard a growling noise coming from up ahead.

"Back up, back up, back up, back up, back up!" Quincy panicked, instantly running backward and nearly running Princeton over. Princeton, however, heard the growling as well and wasted no time in just turning around and sprinting. But the growling was persistent. Whatever creature it was that was coming down the tunnel would catch up to them not because it knew that they were there, but because it was just so fast that each step it took was worth three or four steps from Princeton and Quincy, even while they were running. Suddenly, then, the creature seemed to catch sight of Princeton and Quincy. They could hear the growling grow more high-pitched and insistent.

"Oh, crap!" Quincy muttered, picking up his pace. Princeton, though less muscled, was faster, about five paces in front of Quincy.

"Come on, come on, come on, come on!" he pleaded softly, praying for a miracle.

In the end, though, Princeton and Quincy were captured. Despite their best efforts, they just weren't fast enough to outrun their pursuer and, because the tunnels were in such a straight line, there was nowhere for them to go or hide. Their pursuer never lost sight of them, even once! All at once, then, both of the boys felt something sharp dig into their backs. They only had time to scream once before they both collapsed, pain surging through their entire bodies from the point in which they had been struck. Their bodies convulsed as something that felt like electricity repeatedly shocked them over and over again. Was it some sort of poison that their pursuer had injected them with?

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," Quincy managed to grab Princeton's hand through the darkness and the pain and Princeton could hear the sob in his voice as he continued to apologize and beg for forgiveness. Princeton did not answer verbally. Instead, he only squeezed Quincy's hand even tighter as the sound of their pursuer got closer and closer...

"Holy crap! Quincy Husk! And Princeton Cross, right? What in Denbar are you guys doing in the Bellifer tunnels?"

20 minutes later, Quincy and Princeton were back on their feet. They were still both shaking violently, but at least now they knew that their pursuer had been a friend all along. It was Maggie Marnier, the newest Gifted from Camp Steuben. She had been in Quincy's year, graduating just a few months after he did. Her eyes were a pale gray, but they were not a typical shade of gray. A typical shade of gray in a normal human's eye would often fade off into patches of white. Maggie's eyes, however, were a solid shade, not a speck of white anywhere in her iris. Just gray. Her Gift was just as unsettling and unyielding. She had the power to turn into a 10-foot Black Mamba with a lot of venom and very sharp fangs. But it had not been venom which Quincy and Princeton had felt being shot into their backs. It was the prongs from a tazer that Maggie had shot them with when she still thought that _they_ were Bellifers trying to flee _her_. And how had she been able to keep up with them so easily for so long? She had been riding upon a little motorized scooter. That was what the growling noise was. It was actually a mechanical whirring but, in their panic, neither Princeton nor Quincy had even realized.

"But why in Denbar's name are you down here?" Quincy demanded as he finally managed to catch his breath.

"I could ask you the same thing," Maggie teased.

"Princeton and I fell," Quincy crossed his arms defensively.

"From where?" Maggie's gray eyes suddenly narrowed as her teasing smile vanished.

"Back in some emptier part of Camp Heath," Princeton replied. Maggie's eyes widened again and then she uttered a curse under her breath.

"Why? What's wrong?" Princeton already had the feeling that he knew what had gotten Maggie so frustrated, but he still wanted to check. The story she told him next only confirmed his dark theories.

According to Maggie, the Bellifers had been tunneling under Denbar for the past six years now, hence why nobody had ever detected them before now. And Maggie, herself, was down here exploring the tunnels in hopes of finding out where all the Bellifers were coming from. The scooter she was riding was a stolen one. It used to be used to transport soldiers from Camp Steuben up to the Bellifer's main lair, but since that lair had been destroyed, the scooters pretty much remained unused and untouched. It hadn't been too difficult for Maggie to steal one and carefully lower it down into the Bellifer hole that she had found. It, like Princeton's Bellifer hole, had been in a lesser-known, lesser-used part of camp.

For the past couple of days now, Maggie had been riding around these tunnels, hoping to bring back a map to her camp in order to inform them of what they were really up against. They weren't just dealing with a few stray survivors that had managed to hide during the last battle in the Bellifer War, they were dealing with an entire squad that had somehow survived the bombing and managed to literally go underground for six years, emerging now because they were ready for a rematch against Denbar.

"I didn't mean to scare or hurt you," Maggie promised next. "I just saw you running around down here and assumed the worst..." she fiddled awkwardly with the tazer mounted between the handles of her stolen scooter.

"If I had realized sooner who you were, I wouldn't have kept chasing you like that," she added.

"That would've been nice," Quincy grunted under his breath, still clearly irked by what all had happened. Maggie smiled sadly at him.

"I told you, I think these guys are hiding in plain sight literally right under our noses," she said. "You'll have forgive me if I lash out at anything I see moving down here. After all, it gets kind of lonely and unnerving to be riding around in the darkness alone for days on end," she added with a weary laugh. Princeton was the first to forgive her.

"Who can blame you?" he asked, secretly amazed at Maggie's willingness to come down to a place like this, let alone for multiple days on end with no other humans to keep her company. It would've driven him insane. Even Maggie looked a little bit shaken.

"I hadn't realized how bad the isolation was going to affect me, but I didn't want to turn around before I got at least a basic understanding of these tunnels," Maggie agreed as she saw Princeton's purple eyes flashing sympathetically at her.

"How many days have you been down here anyway?" Quincy asked next, voice a bit gentler now.

"Three or four?" Maggie guessed.

"Three or four?!" Princeton and Quincy echoed in horror.

"I came down here the night Camp Greene's distress call went up about the Bellifer ambush," Maggie explained. "When the call reached our camp, Scarlet immediately set out a bunch of patrols and I managed to find the Bellifer tunnel while on my patrol."

"And you thought going in to explore was a good idea?" Princeton croaked.

"Well, it had to be done," Maggie replied grimly. "I could sense that the hole was no accident and because I had the feeling that we'd all be safe that night – why would the Bellifers risk another attack so soon? – I decided to go exploring immediately. I wanted to find out what I could so I would have something big to report back to Scarlet with. Now, I think I can safely say that not only do we have a giant number of Bellifers still left alive, but they are all presently trying to dig their way around Denbar and surprise-attack us at every major point in our country. It will be a swift and total annihilation if they succeed," Maggie trailed off darkly.

For a moment, only a foreboding silence filled the tunnel, then Quincy managed to ask the Camp Steuben Gifted a question.

"When were you planning on going home to tell Scarlet?" he asked.

"I don't know," she replied sincerely. "But I think now would be a good time. You two need to get back up to the surface world ASAP and I don't think I want to travel around here alone anymore. If you two would join me back to Camp Steuben, that would be much appreciated." Maggie looked at Princeton and Quincy hopefully and they both gave her incredulous looks back.

"Are you nuts?!" they demanded. "Of course we'd be glad to join you! Anything to get out of here would be amazing!" then without further ado, they vaulted onto Maggie's scooter, clinging tightly to her, as if she were a lifeline. But, in some sense, she was. She gave them both a weak laugh before slowly turning the scooter around and heading back west. Even though travel would be slower now that she had all that extra weight on the scooter, she couldn't deny how nice it felt to have company once again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Dun-dun-DUUUNNN (maybe). The Bellifers have been hiding out underground this whole time! Now it's time for Princeton and his two new Gifted buddies to go and spread the word...


	8. Bellifer Tunnels

A few days later, the trio finally reached their destination.

"Here we are!" Maggie sighed in relief as she slid off of her little scooter. It hadn't exactly been a fun trip, having two other soldiers clinging to her back for the entire journey home, but she really had been glad to have the company. The tunnels could get pretty lonely. But now, they were home! Maggie exhaled once again, but this time in excitement instead of weary relief. While Princeton and Quincy shuffled unsteadily off the scooter, Maggie reached into the knapsack she had with her and pulled out a grappling hook. After one accurate toss and a few test tugs, she verified that the hook had stuck its landing and she wasted no time in gesturing for Princeton and Quincy to climb on up. They wasted even less time in obeying. While they practically flew up the rope, Maggie swiftly tied the scooter and the rest of her stuff to the end of the rope before following them up.

"Thank Denbar!" Quincy was practically sobbing as fell onto his back to gaze up at the sky.

"Sweet, sweet, merciful mother earth!" Princeton agreed, in the exact same position. It was very late in the night so the surface world wasn't much brighter than the tunnels had been, but just getting to see the stars again was more than enough for the two boys to be thankful for.

"You guys really missed the surface world, didn't ya?" Maggie snickered as she finally yanked her scooter out of the hole. She received no reply, but she didn't need to in order to know what their answer would've been.

"Come on," she said at last. "We need to get back to camp," and with that, the trio mounted their little scooter one last time and headed back towards the heart of Camp Steuben. It took them less than a half hour to arrive.

"With any luck, mostly everyone will be asleep, so there won't be a large audience for-" Maggie didn't even get to finish whispering before one loud voice pierced the midnight air.

"There they are!" and a whole camp of heads turned east to where Maggie and her companions stood.

"Well, there goes _that_ idea," Princeton laughed weakly, and he and Maggie and Quincy had no choice but to walk right into the waiting arms of a very tense, very angry war camp. Wonderful. Was it too late to go back into the tunnels?

"WHERE IN DENBAR HAVE YOU BEEN?!" Scarlet snarled the moment the three young Gifted had managed to make it through the crowd and into her little private office building towards the south end of camp.

"Busy trying to figure out where the Bellifer attack had come from," Maggie replied calmly. Scarlet's dark eyes narrowed and Maggie's calm expression finally changed to reveal the genuine fear she felt for the older Gifted who stood before her. As kind and gentle as Scarlet was, there was nothing she wouldn't do to protect her family and friends. And it probably was not wise to anger a Gifted who had the ability to control someone's mind, using the power of persuasion to force them to do things they thought they never would, like confessing to a secret or a misdeed. That was what Maggie feared right then, that Scarlet would force her to spill. Her compulsion powers were very strong after over a decade of hard training.

"Just let me explain!" Maggie pleaded quickly, raising her arms to shield her face before Scarlet could start controlling her thoughts and, by proxy, actions. Scarlet's eyes narrowed even more, but she relented and allowed Maggie to speak of her own free will.

"It's a long story, and you'll probably be angry for all of it, but please just let me explain!" Maggie continued to beg.

"Say what you will, and I promise I won't get mad," Scarlet gestured impatiently for Maggie to talk. "Or at least, I won't interrupt," she amended.

"Thank you," Maggie sighed in relief. She knew that Scarlet would honor her vow and, as angry as she might get, she would allow Maggie to finish speaking before she gave any sort of response or reaction. This would make confessing the truth a lot easier on poor Maggie, who was literally shaking from fear at the moment. So were the two Gifted standing behind her. But Maggie steeled her nerves nonetheless and began to speak.

"On the night Camp Greene called us to say that they had been attacked by Bellifers, when you sent out the patrols to scout our borders, I stumbled across a large hole about halfway between our camp and the old Bellifer lair. I could tell right away that it was a manmade hole and not something naturally occurring. I know it was dumb and dangerous of me, but I really wanted to investigate, so I took some supplies and tools and weapons before heading down inside. That's when I realized that the hole wasn't just any ordinary hole. It was a tunnel! And it was connected to an entire network of other tunnels stretching all the way across Denbar! I think that's how the Bellifers have managed to hide from us for so long. They've literally been living right under our noses this entire time. Running into Princeton and Quincy only confirmed my theory," Maggie paused to cast a small look at the two boys, whose eyes were glued to the ground. She couldn't exactly blame them.

"I found them while exploring the tunnel that led away from our camp," Maggie continued on, respectfully turning her gaze back onto Scarlet who, just like she had promised, did not betray a single emotion in response to anything that Maggie said. Maggie almost found that a little bit scarier than if Scarlet _had_ made some sort of visible reaction, but before she could let that thought get to her, Maggie plowed on, eager to finish the rest of her story before her nerves failed her again.

"They had fallen down their own hole in Camp Heath and their own tunnel lead them up to a connection point where two others branched off to the north and west. That was where we met up. We've been traveling back here ever since then, and I think that was about two or three days ago," the younger Camp Steuben Gifted finally finished, looking down at the ground as soon as she stopped talking. She was suddenly aware of her own heartbeat and how loud it was. She briefly wondered if Scarlet could hear it, what with her heightened senses and all. The thought both terrified and humiliated Maggie, but she could do nothing except stare at the ground and pray for mercy.

Scarlet, however, was too stunned by Maggie's report to do more than just stand in silence for a moment as her brain tried to process everything that Maggie had told her. Sure, she was mad at Maggie for going AWOL and stealing camp equipment. And sure, she was mad that Maggie had picked up Quincy and Princeton along the way. But the realization about the Bellifers that Maggie was suggesting to her was far more intimidating than either of the other two aforementioned problems. Scarlet temporarily forgot how mad she was at her disobedient soldier in favor of demanding more information about the Bellifer tunnels.

"And you are certain that this is what they are doing?" she demanded of Maggie.

"What else could it possibly be?" Maggie asked back with a grim nod. "It's a giant network of underground tunnels that link up every single war camp. And Princeton, Quincy and I have seen claw and toothmarks around certain parts of the tunnels. What else could've made them except for the Bellifers?" she added with an even grimmer expression. Scarlet's own expression had become deeply troubled, her beautiful features contorting into a look of anger and fear. Before she could speak, however, two new voices joined the conversation as Scarlet's office door swung open loudly.

"But that's impossible!" the first new voice cried, shrill and demanding. "The Bellifers were all wiped out in the bombing!"

"Yeah, there shouldn't be enough of them left to pull off such a feat!" a second voice agreed, just as nasally, loud and bossy as the first.

The two speakers were a set of twins, Aubrey and Audrey Powers. They had joined the army just a year or so before the war had come to an end. Despite their relatively short time in actual combat, however, the two had proven themselves to be incredible fighters and thinkers. They were very vicious and capable soldiers and it was their strength, courage, skill and intelligence that had earned them a fair amount of praise within Camp Steuben's ranks. Additionally, it also earned them both the role of camp deputy.

Even though, technically, there was only supposed to be one deputy per camp, because the two sisters had agreed upon it, they shared the duties and responsibilities equally. They had made an agreement with Scarlet to share the job, going back and forth between who was the officially titled deputy and who was the unofficial, but equally powerful, deputy. The two were a few years older than Princeton and his age group, but a few years younger than Iris and hers. Because of that, Princeton guessed that they might've been roughly 24 years of age, maybe slightly older.

As he continued to study them, Princeton also realized that although they were twins, there were enough physical differences between the two sisters that he was able to tell who was who without too much trouble. Aubrey was slightly slimmer and she had bright yellow hair, like a summer sun. Additionally, her eyes were bright blue. Audrey, meanwhile, was a bit plumper, and her hair had a reddish-orange tone to it. It was more like an auburn than an outright blond. Similarly, her eyes almost had a shade of hazel to them, which was counterpoint to Aubrey's sky-blue ones. No one knew which of the two had been born first, however, their own mother having mixed them up after they were born. But that little detail did not matter to either of them. They were both incredibly close and incredibly serious and, at times like this, they were all ears.

"Not a single person who went on patrol to the remnants of the Bellifer Nest said that there was anything left in the rubble," Aubrey continued, blue eyes cold and hard as she glared disdainfully down at Maggie.

"And they went in with all kinds of radars and whatnot," Audrey agreed. "There's no way they would've missed such a large number of Bellifers!"

"But what if they had already gotten out before the patrols?" Princeton finally dared to speak up as something occurred to him. "What if the reason we never found anything six years ago was because they had already evacuated some of their ranks from the nest?"

"Impossible," Aubrey repeated stubbornly. "The radars would've picked up a trace. And that bomb was so big anyway that there was no way they could've gotten anywhere safe in time! The entire nest is pretty much flat now! Do you really think anything would've survived its collapse or been able to sneak away before it went boom?"

"They could've evacuated before we ever even brought the bomb over," Princeton replied quietly again.

"Impossible!" Aubrey said yet again, but for once, Audrey did not agree with her sister. Instead, she held out a hand to hush Aubrey.

"Wait a moment," she murmured to her twin. "I think he might be on to something."

"On to something?" Aubrey scoffed. "Don't be ridiculous!" but Audrey ignored her to address Princeton.

Although both of the Powers sisters could be very fierce, serious, intimidating and demanding, Audrey had the reputation of being the nicer, quieter, gentler one. If Aubrey was the one to jump to conclusions and start shouting, Audrey was the one who would wait one extra second just to double-check. It was this patience that allowed her to see something that Aubrey wasn't. What Aubrey failed to realize in her angry tirade against the stupid little Camp Heath boy was that his gears were turning. He was catching onto something the rest of them weren't. Audrey could see it in his dark purple eyes that he had an idea and she wanted to know what it was. So she bade him to talk and held out a hand to silence her protesting sister. They didn't become camp deputies by being impatient, after all. It was cunning, ambition and strategy that saw them through, and sometimes, the most valuable of sources and resources only opened themselves up to the girls when they were able to sit back and be quiet and simply observe. That was what Audrey was doing now. She didn't see it as a kindness or politeness so much as she saw it an investment into what Princeton was catching onto that she wasn't.

"Don't you remember?" Princeton asked, feeling slightly emboldened now that Audrey looked interested in what he had to say. "When Camp Reed was testing their bombs, one of them went off too soon and took out a large chunk of the mountain. Sure, the chunk wasn't large enough to be a devastation, but it was still large enough for everyone to notice. Including the Bellifers..."

For a moment, there was only silence as everyone took in this new piece of information. As grim as it was, it all checked out. It made perfect sense. Denbar had striven to keep the nuke plan as secret as possible, but, like Princeton had said, one of the test bombs went off too soon. Even though everyone in on the project managed to keep it quiet enough that the rest of Denbar didn't notice it, who was to say that the Bellifers hadn't caught wind of the accident? And if the Bellifers had known about the bomb, even if they hadn't understood exactly how devastating it would be, they would still have had some level of understanding that Denbar had something big in store for them in the future. With knowledge like that, who was to say that the Bellifers hadn't tried to relocate before Denbar could unleash its secret fury upon their ranks?

"Early evacuation," Princeton muttered. "But they left enough of their ranks behind so that we wouldn't become suspicious when we didn't find as many bodies as expected… Those clever fiends…" the purple-eyed Gifted shook his head in disgust at the realization. So the Bellifer War wasn't really over at all! The Bellifers had only ever tricked them into thinking that it was. In truth, though, a sizeable portion of the Bellifer army was still very much alive and well. They were just hidden, deep under the ground. For now.

"So what do we do now?" Quincy asked, the first to break the silence. His voice was soft and low with fear and awe.

"Well, I think, first and foremost, we need to get everyone back to where they belong," Scarlet replied, finally coming back to herself and regaining some of her composure. Although she was still reeling from the revelations revealed to her, she managed to come around long enough to take back her control and start to redirect the proceedings. Her voice grew stronger and stronger with every word that she spoke as she slowly retook control over the situation and began to issue commands to everyone in the room.

"Maggie Marnier, you are to return to bed at once but, at the crack of dawn, report directly to me. As useful as your reports were, you still broke quite a few rules while sneaking out and you must be punished for what you have done. Am I understood?" she asked, voice cold and hard.

"Yes ma'am," Maggie trembled, then she bowed once before her mighty leader before scampering back out of Scarlet's office and all but flying back to her bunk. She dreaded to think about what would happen to her once the sun came up. Kind and gentle as Scarlet was, she was no slouch and she could be very strict and imposing when she wanted to be...

"Aubrey and Audrey, I want one of you to tell whoever else is awake all that you have heard tonight. The other one of you will make the call to the rest of Denbar. Take my phone into the next room, and make it quick," she commanded.

"Yes ma'am," the Powers twins saluted in perfect unison before one of them raced outside after Maggie and the other even deeper into Scarlet's office, grabbing the phone on her desk on the way.

"And as for you two boys?" Scarlet asked finally. Princeton and Quincy both gulped audibly. "You sent the entirety of Camp Heath into a tizzy after you disappeared. And for you to vanish so completely, without any trace or note, and then to be gone for days on end?! Well, let me just say that I am glad that I am not the one Storm and Iris will be mad at when they get here..." Scarlet's black eyes seemed to grow even darker as she threatened this and, once again, both of the younger Gifted soldiers blanched.

"Wait. They're coming _here_?" Quincy croaked.

"As soon as we saw you coming, I sent Theodore to go make the calls while the Powers and I dealt with you directly," Scarlet replied frostily. Once again, the two boys could only quail. Scarlet had this all planned out, didn't she? But then again, one did not simply become the leader of Camp Steuben without good merit! Clearly, Grau had already seen this sharper, darker side to the sweetheart of a woman, even from the very beginning. It was a small wonder, then, as to why he might've picked her as his successor.

Early on, rumors had said that Scarlet might've simply been a trophy deputy, but such ideas were quickly put down because of how disrespectful they were, both to Grau and Scarlet. Scarlet was more than just a pretty face, and she would never consider her beauty, stunning as it was, merit for any real power or accolades. Grau had not chosen her just because she was pretty. And Grau felt much the same. Although he did acknowledge and admire that Scarlet was the prettiest woman in all of Denbar, he never had anything other than genuine and honest respect and admiration for her. His promotion of her had not been for any sort of favors in return. To suggest such a thing was a very cruel idea in deed. Besides, there had been rumors that Grau might've been asexual and aromantic, just because of how uninterested he seemed when it came to such things. Though those, of course, were only rumors, and could've easily been false. Besides, an outward lack of interest in romance did not automatically mean that someone was either of those two things.

But no matter the rumor about Grau, Scarlet, or the dynamic between them, it became abundantly clear to Quincy and Princeton both that Grau had made an excellent choice in Scarlet as his successor. As sweet and loving as she was, she always got things done and she was a very sharp, intelligent woman. She was the perfect person to represent Camp Steuben! The proof was in how she was handling the situation right now.

"I had Theodore tell Storm and Iris exactly where you were and where you had come from and with whom you had come," Scarlet continued, voice still strict and serious. "That's just enough to let them know the general gist of what you had been doing, but it still leaves plenty of room for you boys to go ahead and tell them _exactly_ what had happened..." Scarlet paused to smile grimly at Princeton and Quincy. She had gotten them once again! By telling Storm and Iris everything that they needed to know before arrival, but still leaving enough unsaid that Princeton and Quincy would still have to explain, Scarlet was not only forcing them to come clean to their superiors, but also ensuring that they could not lie either.

Just a second later, Theodore himself stepped onto the scene.

"Audrey just gave us the news," he rumbled, voice low and deep. "Is it true? That the Bellifers are burrowing under Denbar? And that Ms. Marnier and her two Camp Heath accomplices were the ones to figure it out?"

"Why don't you ask our guests?" Scarlet asked sweetly, gesturing to Princeton and Quincy. Once again, they trembled under her gesture, but when Theodore turned to them with a knowing grin on his face, they relaxed somewhat. Although Theodore was far more physically scary than Scarlet, being hundreds of pounds of pure muscle and battle scars, there was a very sweet nature in him to rival Scarlet's own and he was never as serious as she was, even in the darkest of times. That was why, despite his outwardly terrifying appearance, Princeton and Quincy felt a little bit more at ease once he turned to face them, the tiniest of grins on his scarred face.

After Princeton and Quincy retold their story, however, Theodore's gentle little smile had turned into a deep, troubled frown.

"So it _is_ true!" he breathed darkly. "And we have a tunnel. Right here! In our own Camp Steuben!" he sounded offended and disbelieving.

"Unfortunately," Scarlet's grim expression became pained. "Do you think it would be wise to send out some patrols?" she asked her husband.

"Well, after Audrey's little announcement, those who were already awake only became more awake and those who were asleep were woken up by the excited chatter of those already awake," Theodore replied with a darkly amused expression. "That being said, I think that while a patrol might not have any practical means, at least not tonight, some of your soldiers are definitely going to want to have a few now."

"Well, better to have organized patrols now than to try and wait until morning only for me to find out that the rest of my camp has gone missing!" Scarlet muttered under her breath. "I'm assuming Ms. Marnier is awake again now too?" she added a second later.

"Mmm-hmm," Theodore nodded. Scarlet heaved a sigh. Although Maggie was technically breaking a rule by still being awake after receiving the direct order to go to bed, Scarlet couldn't penalize her on this one. The entire camp was sure to be on pins and needles now with this latest discovery. This was something even Maggie couldn't sleep through.

"Very well," the leader of Camp Steuben decided. "I shall send out a few patrols so that everyone may at least see the tunnels. I know that no one will rest if I don't grant them this one little chance to slake their curiosity now..." Scarlet sounded reluctant, but she finally made up her mind and requested that Theodore be the one to do it.

"Aubrey is still making phone calls, but I'm sure Audrey can help you," Scarlet told her husband.

"As you wish, my love," Theodore replied, a genuinely tender note in his voice as he leaned down to kiss her cheek. For the first time that night, Scarlet's face lit up like the sun and a genuinely playful and childish smile flitted across her face. She even giggled a little as well. It was a sight like that that reminded Princeton and Quincy of why Scarlet was also considered one of the nicest people in Denbar, as well as the most beautiful.

But in the same way that Scarlet was quite fierce and powerful despite her outwardly adorable and innocent appearance, so was Theodore. Although his appearance wasn't quite so gentle, him being a giant of a man with nothing but muscles and battle scars everywhere, he had the same sort of nature and temperament that Scarlet did. Additionally, he had also led Camp Steuben before, though only as a temporary substitute. It all happened back at the end of the Bellifer war. Scarlet and the other Gifted were all taken into government custody and, while she was away, Camp Steuben was left without a leader. Theodore was quickly put in place, partly because he was the closest person to Scarlet and partly because his own hulking and intimidating figure was a morale-booster to the rest of the weary war camp.

Theodore had led Camp Steuben well in the year-and-a-half absence of his wife, though he was the first to admit that he wasn't nearly as smart as she was. If anything, _he_ had been the token, trophy leader, tossed in merely because he looked the part. But even though his rise to power hadn't been the most legitimate, his rule certainly was, and he managed to keep a firm and controlled, yet compassionate and mindful grip on Camp Steuben in the all the days that he reigned. Once Scarlet recovered, however, he stepped down immediately, gleefully allowing her to take back over once she returned to camp. Additionally, because he had no interest in the life of a leader, he declined the deputy role too, leaving the Powers twins to take over. They had been two of his most avid supporters and helpers back when he was in charge of camp, so he trusted them fully with the role of deputy. He just, personally, had no desire to rule, having only done so at all out of necessity.

But right before Theodore left Scarlet's office completely, he stopped to address Princeton.

"You look just like her," he smiled down at the much scrawnier boy. Of course, he did not mean that literally, but looking at Princeton was like looking at Iris to him. Both of them were small, physically unintimidating little Gifted soldiers with purple eyes and a pension for getting in trouble and running off to Camp Steuben on some self-assigned mission.

Princeton couldn't help but smile at that remark, both pleased and amused at the comparison. He knew all too well of his mentor's old escapades, the largest being her daring quest to rescue Storm from the wicked hands of the power-hungry Gifted known as Liam Venderwarp. He knew of Iris' habits and adventures, sneaking out of camp all the time on other crazy missions and plots to help save Denbar. Hearing Theodore compare those adventures to what Princeton was going through now cheered him up considerably.

"I wonder if she'll be proud," he joked and Theodore only laughed before leaving, the iron door shutting with a clang behind him.

"I don't know about that," Scarlet replied, but her voice had finally softened up now that the need for her direct leadership was over. That warm and friendly aura had returned to her and her accent came out as thick and sweet as golden honey.

"But I certainly do know all about her misadventures too. Is it a habit, now, in Camp Heath to send undersized, purple-eyed apprentices over here on little side-quests? Because if so, I hope dearly that you were the last purple-eyed Gifted," she paused to laugh, a musical and adorable sound.

"I wouldn't call it tradition so much as I would call it bad luck," Princeton replied with a laugh of his own.

"Well, if it _is_ tradition, Camp Greene gets dibs on any future purple-eyed Gifted," Quincy finally spoke up for the first time in awhile, a smile evident in his voice. He was starting to relax too. All of them were much more at ease now that the initial lectures and reports were over.

For the next half hour, or so, Scarlet continued to entertain the two boys and vice versa, all three of them bonding over their status as Gifted, and other adventures and escapades they had been on in their lifetimes. Sadly, though, the fun could not last forever and, finally, Storm and Iris arrived into Camp Steuben. All the warm and fuzzy feelings generated in the last 30 minutes dissipated as soon as the announcement was made.

"Uh oh," was all Princeton could say to Quincy as Scarlet heard the knock on the office door and Iris' voice coming from the other side of it. His fears were not unfounded. To put simply, Storm and Iris were both seething. They were able to successfully keep their tempers in check, but it was quite clear that both of them were beyond furious at all the stress the two young Gifted soldiers had caused them and their camp.

"Uh oh," Princeton repeated, but this time, Quincy couldn't even nod in agreement, so terrified was he.

"Ah! Iris! Storm!" Scarlet greeted the duo warmly as they stepped into her office. She could feel the anger radiating off of both of them, but because she knew that the anger would never turn into any sort of harm towards the two younger soldiers, she saw no reason to feel worried. Princeton and Quincy both bitterly wished that they could share such confident sentiments.

"Scarlet," the duo replied in unison, nodding in curt politeness to the leader of Camp Steuben. Scarlet inwardly chuckled. Even though the two were very physically dissimilar, in this moment, they looked so much alike, and she almost found it romantic.

"You've come to collect your runaways I suppose?" she asked once the two were fully inside her office.

"Yes," there was the unison reply again, two pairs of eyes cold and hard.

"Then have at them," Scarlet waved the boys off, but before she totally released them from her care, she added one last gentle statement. "But be gentle with them, please," she insisted. "It seems that they meant no harm and, as you now know, they have done a great service to us all. You ought to thank them! As soon as you're finished chewing them out, that is," she added with a soft laugh.

"We'll keep it in mind," Storm replied, but since she was speaking through clenched teeth, this wasn't particularly reassuring. No one had a chance to say anything else, however, because Iris quickly commanded for the two boys to follow them back out and neither of them dared to mess with such a powerful little soldier. Instead, they filed out at once, heads bowed.

Scarlet watched them go, still smiling in gentle amusement even after they were out of sight. No matter how much trouble those boys would get into and no matter how deserved it was, Scarlet was already quite fond of them both and had the feeling that their adventures weren't over. Not by a long shot. But as of right now? She had Bellifer tunnels to deal with! So she shut out all thoughts of Camp Heath and quickly turned back to her desk, plans and maps already scattered out upon them. What would her next move be?


	9. Deep Trouble

But while Scarlet was busy strategizing and preparing for war, Princeton and Quincy were busy strategizing and preparing what to say that would minimize whatever punishment Storm and Iris had in store for them. It didn't go over too well. They did manage to tell everything they had told to Scarlet, so Iris and Storm would at least know they weren't lying or changing the story at all, but they were still forced to admit that their recklessness had led them to going missing for multiple days. That was the problem of it all.

"I don't even know what to do with you guys anymore," Storm spat, still pacing angrily as the subway raced on. "Not only did you end up putting yourselves at great risk, but you ended up causing mayhem back home as well! We didn't know where you were, or what had become of you, or anything else for that matter!" she paused to shake her head angrily. "I can't even think of a suitable punishment for you…" she hissed. Princeton and Quincy both gulped nervously again as she continued to pace angrily back and forth in front of them. They were in deep trouble.

This time, however, Iris interceded, her heart moved by their story. From what she understood, their escapade had been purely accidental. Unlike her own runaway trips to the eastern war camp in her youth, Princeton and Quincy's had not been intentional. They had slipped up, literally, so it wouldn't be fair to punish them as though this was all done on purpose, or with ill intent, because it hadn't. It was a mistake, no more or less.

"Darling, perhaps you are being a little too harsh," she said. In response, Storm whipped around at her, still seething in her anger. But because Iris knew that Storm wasn't mad at her personally, she only met Storm's eyes calmly.

For a moment, there was only silence, but then, like magic, Storm began to calm down. Something about that tender and knowing look from Iris soothed something deep within Storm and she stopped pacing and growling like an angry tiger. Princeton and Quincy could only marvel in silence as they watched Storm's shoulders slowly slump deeper and deeper, her entire body loosening up as Iris only continued to stare gently into her eyes. Then, Iris stood up from her seat to touch Storm's arm. It was the touch that finished everything off. Storm practically wilted down by half of her size and the very last vestiges of her anger faded away into the air. She even managed to give Iris a weak, apologetic smile. This earned a soft sigh from both of the boys sitting behind her, who were more than glad to see her scary leader side disappear.

As Iris continued to stroke Storm's arm, Storm kept on relaxing until her eyes were half shut and her breathing had slowed down to a more normal tempo. As the tenseness continued to fall away from Storm, she slowly began to nod in agreement with Iris' soft and comforting words. The next time she spoke, her voice was far softer and gentler than it was before. There was still a sharp edge to it, but it was nowhere near as angry, aggressive or harsh as it had been just moments earlier.

"My Iris is right," she began lowly. "I have been a little too harsh. I know that you were only trying to help, and that neither of you intended to fall down that hole. I must say that you did do good works, both of you. It is lucky that you found us the answer to the question we've all been wondering ever since the fall of camp Greene," Storm paused, then, to allow the guilty soldiers to relax a little bit more.

Although Storm still did enjoy scaring some of her younger soldiers from time to time, she no longer did it constantly, or senselessly. Thanks to all of her years with Iris, she had mellowed out, and become more sensitive. She now knew that, sometimes, the best way to win someone over was with gentleness and understanding, not outright strength and brutality. Assertiveness was not the only way to get a point across. It was effective, but only sometimes.

"You have found us something very valuable," she repeated. "And when we get back home, we will work out this issue at once! But you boys will be doing the brunt of the grunt work, am I understood?" she asked, her voice hardening slightly as she did so.

"Yes ma'am!" the boys muttered at once, too scared to say anything else.

"Good," Storm replied, the tiniest of smirks flickering across her face. "We should be home soon…"

"Yes ma'am," the boys replied again, even though Storm had not asked for confirmation this time. She watched in amusement as they continued to stare fearfully down at their shoes. Iris, meanwhile, rolled her eyes in affectionate exasperation as their subway cart zoomed on home.

After about two hours, the group had officially come home. It was very early morning. All of them figured that dawn was maybe only a few hours away now, just because of how long the adventure had taken everyone.

"I want you boys in bed, _immediately_. You hear me?" Iris asked as they dismounted the subway and stepped into the moonlight.

"Yes, ma'am!" the two chorused before darting away from her and her wife, never looking back even once as they raced on through the dark camp.

"Idiots," Storm heaved a sigh while Iris chuckled at the sight of the fleeing youngsters.

"Don't be too hard on them," she implored. "They were only being-"

"Reckless, disobedient, and just as bad as you ever were," Storm interjected.

"I wasn't this bad!" Iris scoffed.

"Oh yes you were!" Storm countered, but Iris could hear the teasing in her tone.

"Well somebody had to save the damsel in distress!" Iris replied with a sassy wink. Storm let out a disgusted sigh but she agreed.

"My knight with glowing purple eyes certainly did come through for me," she said and Iris laughed at the title before pretending to bow regally.

"Shall we, m'lady?" she asked, offering an arm.

"We shall," Storm indulged, taking the arm. Iris giggled childishly and held Storm's arm proudly all the way back to their private cabin.

The next day, everybody got down to business. Storm's remark about deep trouble had been quite literal, after all, and it was a problem everyone needed to start working on as soon as they could.

"Alright, soldiers! Listen up!" Storm announced during breakfast. "We've learned that the Bellifers have been under out our noses this whole time. Literally! They have been digging tunnels underneath our fair country, linking us all up so that they might travel freely from place to place to ambush and kill us without our knowledge!" the dining hall filled with gasps of horror and anger as Storm told them this. "We already know where the tunnels are in Camp Steuben and Camp Heath and we have a fair idea of where the tunnel is in Camp Greene! What we must do now is guard those holes with our lives until a plan can come about to stop the Bellifers or permanently plug the holes! Am I clear?"

"Yes!" the whole dining hall chorused, suddenly alive with energy now that a real plan was taking shape.

"Good! Because I'm going to start organizing watches for that tunnel!" Storm shouted over the soldiers. "In fact, I've got the list right here!" she added as Gale handed her a small paper they had both put together before breakfast.

After breakfast was over, most of the soldiers were headed off to their normal daily tasks, but a few were sent to guard the Bellifer hole. It was a large opening in the earth, endless and black, but the soldiers were merely sent there to watch in case something tried coming out of it. They were also instructed to set up traps, like nets and spikes, but they were forbidden from trying to fill up the hole. This was for several reasons. One, it was a waste of time and energy. If the Bellifers could've created such a hole once, nothing could stop them from making it again if it was filled. Two, if the hole was filled, the Bellifers would know that their secret was out. Three, if the hole was filled, the Bellifers could potentially build a new one somewhere else, leaving everyone back at square one, with no idea where the Bellifers were, or where they might strike next. Because of that, it was seen as the wisest decision to just leave the holes alone, but keep a close eye on them just in case anything did try to attack.

"You'll be on this shift until lunch," Storm said as she led the geared up party out to the hole. They all stopped to peer into that horrid and gaping mouth. They made various noises of concern, fear and disgust, but Storm bade them all to be quiet.

"We can't let them know we're watching," she whispered. "So practice combat and try to act normal and natural, but don't let your guard down!" "Yes, ma'am!" her party responded obediently as they lined themselves up around the tunnel's mouth.

"Good," Storm commended them. "As you were!" then she left them to guard the hole. In the meantime, she was going to be planning…

"Ok, so we know they've got tunnels and we know they're using them to attack us," Storm said at once, sitting in her leader cabin with Iris, Gale, Tanya, Angelina and Barry sitting beside her. Stretched out before them at the table where they sat were charts and maps similar to what had been atop Scarlet's desk the previous night. Pencils were out as Storm verbalized ideas that the others were free to add input to.

"Our main question is which camp they'll choose next," she began.

"I'll bet it'll be Camp Steuben," Gale said right away. "If they can get Camp Greene out of the way, it'll only be natural that they attack the second most overt camp next. Pride will incite them to go for it and logic will merely confirm that idea. They won't see Camp Heath as big enough of a threat to bother attacking just yet and Camp Reed is on the other side of the country, so it's just less likely to be attacked because of the distance," he finished. Iris, Storm and Angelina all nodded. His rationalization was solid. But Tanya and Barry pouted a little.

"Camp Steuben isn't _that_ impressive," they insisted softly.

"Yes it is," Storm snapped back. "We don't have time for your petty prejudice against them. They have tied with you on being the strongest camp several times over now, but now we've lost you. If we lose them too, we might have to suffer another 13 years of war! I don't think any of us want that," the blond warned and Tanya and Barry had the decency to look humbled, though it was clear they felt no love for the eastern war camp. But like Storm said, that was an old and silly rivalry, started some time after the very first Bellifer War when the two camps got into an argument over who had done more in that particular war. The rivalry was still ongoing today, though it was not nearly as vicious before simply because, with each new generation, there were more and more open minds and less and less who wanted to keep old fights going just because of a stupid tradition.

"Yes. Please, put aside your rivalry just once and think about this for real!" Iris pleaded. She was the youngest at the table, but no less respected. She was able to quiet Barry and Tanya's jabs at Camp Steuben, if only for that one moment.

"Besides, even if you _don't_ think the Bellifers will attack Camp Steuben out of pride or because it's one of the stronger camps, they might do it just because of its location," Gale added next, trying to appeal to everyone's sense of logic again. There was always a time and place for emotions, but not every emotion was beneficial to a situation such as battle planning. The rivalry-based emotions needed to wait. What everyone needed right now was determination, courage and willingness.

"Logic will tell them to strike the east next because that's their origin point and it's the closest camp to their old burrow," he said.

"But why does that matter?" Tanya asked finally. "Ignoring our prejudices, why exactly are we hypothesizing where they'll strike next? Are you going to set up some sort of extra defense system around that hole in question? Or are you going to try a preemptive strike?"

"Bingo!" Storm nodded with a savage light in her eyes. "We're going to turn their tunnels against them!" It was at times like that when everyone in the room was glad that Storm was a friend and not a foe. She could still be quite scary, even after mellowing out. But ultimately, Storm's plan was dubbed as the best and most logical. It was relatively simple, all things considered. And all she was asking was that an influx of soldiers would be sent to Camp Steuben in preparation for that inevitable attack.

"We'll have Camp Steuben soldiers stand guard around their Bellifer tunnel and act as though they don't need backup. They'll make off-handed remarks that sound cocky and overly-confident. With any luck, the Bellifers will hear those false proclamations of self-adoration and attack. The Bellifers will assume that Camp Steuben really did believe that it wouldn't suffer the same fate as Camp Greene. In short, we're trying to use pride against the Bellifers, by making them think that Camp Steuben will make the same exact mistake Camp Greene did," Storm explained.

"It will be then, right when the Bellifers launch their ambush, that everyone else will come out of hiding and join in the battle. In this case, that will be us, Camp Greene and Heath. We'll basically be using the same tactic that the Bellifers themselves once used: tricking the enemy into thinking that there is less of a threat than there actually is. If all goes well, we'll win that battle and possibly kill enough of them this time that it will be safe to plug up the holes. If most of them die in that ambush, we will be able to easily pick off any others that poke their heads up out of the ground. There won't be enough of them to maintain such a complex underground network anymore! Or we'll just send some of our own people into the tunnels and bring the fight to them. That shouldn't be too hard if we can kill enough of them in this first battle at Camp Steuben," she finished.

"So, we're basically ambushing their ambush?" Barry asked once Storm finished her little plan.

"Correct," Storm nodded and everyone else made noises of approval. It was so simple yet so effective.

"When do we start?" Angelina asked at once, a rare light of excitement entering her dark eyes.

"Now," Storm replied. "I've got Gale monitoring our radars, which we've placed closer to the mouth of the hole. I'm also about to call Camp Steuben and advise that they do likewise. As soon as we get the signal that the next ambush has begun, we're going to go for it!"

"Sounds like a plan!" everyone else agreed with Camp Heath's leader, so the idea became a reality. Suddenly, all eyes were glued to radars that were carefully set up around the tunnels. The movement of the Bellifers was tracked carefully. Sure enough, the aliens were constantly amassing eastwards. It seemed like Storm's plan to a preemptive strike would go off without a hitch.

But for all of the elegance in Storm's simple plan, there was still one glaring flaw. Assumption. Of course, assumption could never be overridden completely, but it still ultimately proved to be the downfall to Storm's plan, despite how perfect the plan was. As the time passed, every eye was glued to a radar near the east. This was all fine and dandy, but if only they had been paying a little more attention elsewhere…

"RED ALERT! RED ALERT! CAMP REED IS UNDER ATTACK! I REPEAT, CAMP REED IS UNDER ATTACK!" it wasn't exactly the best call to wake up to on a mid-November morning, yet it was exactly what happened when too many eyes were pointed eastward. Now they were all in deep trouble again and it looked like the western war camp was going to pay the price.


	10. Surprise Attack

Never had so many people been moved so fast before. But the second the news struck that Camp Reed was being attacked, the other two surviving camps quickly piled into the subway, their own underground transit, and were sent flying west as fast as the subway would allow. Sadly, that still meant that it would take two full hours before they could reach their friends out west. But Camp Reed had been blessed with plenty of defense systems, including its human intelligence, a lot of fancy tech and the mountain itself. Although two hours was a long time to stall, it was still fairly simple enough for Camp Reed to do. It became an endurance game of who could outlast the other. But all they really needed was to survive two hours. They could do that. And once they did, the cavalry would've arrived.

The leaders and deputies of the three camps coming to help all sat in the front of the long cart speeding west. They were speaking on a cell phone with one soldier who had intentionally been hidden in some place safe. It was his job, specifically, to issue reports to the arriving aid and warn them of anything that might hinder their arrival or initial ascent up the mountain to help with this surprise attack.

"The elevator is still safe!" he shouted through the phone and over the din of war. "They haven't been able to damage it yet and even if the power goes out, it's hooked up to a separate generator so you should still be able to use it! But that being said, get ready for one heck of a fight when those doors open again!" he added. Something exploded several yards away, accenting what he had just said.

"How are the numbers looking?" Storm was the first to ask. All the others leaned in to hear the reply.

"We're still getting bombarded and we're trying to do counts!" the scout replied. "It's definitely true that there are more than we anticipated, but this should be it. Right? I mean, is there anyone who can confirm or deny the presence of all of the Bellifers within their own camp?"

"Yes!" Scarlet was the one who spoke this time. "My husband is the one watching from home and he says that the Camp Steuben radars are clear."

"I'm assuming Camp Greene is," said Barry and Tanya nodded. One of her soldiers was monitoring from Camp Heath and had just texted her that all was clear there too. And Storm received a similar text from Camp Heath. So everywhere but Camp Reed was clear.

"Good!" the boy shouted back over the sounds of war. "If we win this battle and refuse to let any of them escape this time, we just might finally wipe them out!" but that was the last thing they heard him say before one particularly loud roar cut him off.

"What was that?!" Tanya and Scarlet shouted in unison.

"A bear Bellifer! How did it even get up here?!" they heard the scout on the other end of the line despair. "We still haven't even found where exactly the Bellifers were coming from!" he confessed.

"Wonderful," Storm growled to herself. She could see why Camp Reed might've never found their hole, their camp having the most places for one, but it wasn't exactly comforting to hear that no one currently on the battlefield knew where the main source of the Bellifers was. Maybe that was why Camp Reed had been attacked. Maybe the Bellifers had discovered the radars around the holes in all of the camps except Camp Reed and had decided that Camp Reed would be the easiest target just because it had no idea where its hole was yet. Either way, this wasn't just going to be an elimination round. They were going to have to go hunting too.

"Can you hold on a bit longer?" Gale asked their Reed reporter.

"Yes! We're doing alright! I hope you get here soon, though," they could all hear his voice tremble and sympathy erupted from the group.

"Just keep staying strong! We should be there in half an hour!" Barry and Scarlet both replied. The boy tried to say something in return, but another roar from the Bellifer bear kept them from hearing what exactly he had said.

In the next subway cart over, the Gifted were doing the exact same thing that their leaders were. One of them was using their phone to call another, who had since turned his phone into a visual aid, strapping it to his chest so that everyone could see the battle from a first-person view. Communication was, quite literally, shaky, but it at least gave the Gifted a small window into what they were about to join in on. In addition, whenever he had the chance, the Gifted with the phone, Rexus Alreth, would try to shout verbal updates as well. It was hard to hear him, just because the phone was strapped to his chest and not his mouth, but the Gifted had sharp enough ears to pick up most of what he said.

"Oooh! That's a big fella!" Avalon muttered as ey took a look at the phone, seeing a large bear through the shaking frame.

"How did that thing even get up there?" Iskala and Princeton both asked, echoing the same question the scout on the phone had asked earlier.

"Who knows?" Edward muttered, peeking over Avalon and Quincy's shoulders in order to get a better look at screen and the bear on it.

"Wish he would hold the cam still," Iskala murmured ruefully.

"Me too, but it's not like a battle is an easy time to make a video," Iris agreed.

"Look! It's Emma Embry!" Quincy suddenly cried out. Sure enough, from the current view from Rexus' chest, the group could see a small, furry bolt of brown and black go streaking across the little screen. It was a spotted hyena, Emma's Gift being the ability to turn into said creature. Although it was hard to see, let alone clearly, it was apparent that Emma had a very, very, very devastating bite. Anything she clamped her long, sharp teeth and powerful jaw on usually ended up severed or torn.

With her was Oliver Alreth, Rexus' little sister. She was the Giftless Gifted Princeton had been compared to early on. But what she lacked in special power, she made up for in raw combat skill. It was impressive seeing her fight so hard and fast, helping Emma fight whatever came too close to them. No one could see the third and final Gifted of camp yet. (If one did the math, Camp Reed should've had four Gifted like Camp Heath, but in the first year of the law regarding Hybrids in the army, Camp Reed never got their apprentice because ey was dead. It would've been Trina Harris, the last Gifted to be admitted in early to fight in the last battle of the war).

"How are things looking?" Iskala finally demanded. It took a moment, but Rexus finally found the chance to reply.

"We're doing well enough, but if we don't find the source of all this madness, they're going to destroy the whole camp!" Rexus bellowed. As if to accentuate the point, yet another explosion went off. This time, though, the accompanying flames were visible. They were caused by the third and final Gifted. Xyr name was Rowan Hurst and xe had the Gift of fire. So now everyone was present and accounted for.

"If anything destroys camp, it'll be Rowan!" Quincy joked as the flames shot across the sky, but they were unable to see the Gifted responsible.

"Is anyone checking inside the mountains?" Edward asked next.

"Of course!" Rexus sounded genuinely indignant that there were people out there who thought Camp Reed's first thought hadn't been about their precious mountain. Then he quickly explained that Pascal Pascal, the current Camp Reed leader, was leading a charge down there himself. So far, he hadn't come back to say one way or another if the hole was inside the mountain, but with the literal heat of battle surging through the mountain, no one had much time to try and check on him.

The Gifted and the camp leaders continued to converse with their respective allies until the subway finally reached Camp Reed.

"Go, go, go!" Storm bellowed at once, the first soldier off the subway. They crammed as many people as they could into Camp Reed's elevator and the thing spent the next few minutes doing some hard labor as it lifted a total of 1500 soldiers to the mountain top. Perhaps that wasn't much in the grand scheme of things, but that meant the army was about 2000 people and that was pretty big for such a generally peaceful country. But it was funny, the elevator ride was so soft and soothing with cheesy elevator music to boot. It was enough to make one laugh. But then, the moment the doors slid open again, a burning field of blood and nightmares awaited. It was a striking dissonance.

"Is it too late to go back down?" Gale joked as his party reached the top of the mountain first. The doors shut behind him.

"I guess so," Iris smiled grimly as it began to descend to get the next batch of soldiers. "Now what's the plan?" she asked next.

"We fight," Storm replied simply, unsheathing her giant, gleaming blade.

"Ah, the best kind of plan," Iris' purple eyes began to glow in response.

If the mountain was chaotic before, there wasn't even a word to describe what it became after the other two war camps finally arrived. Everything was a giant blur and it was hard to tell where one creature ended and another began. There was just so much blood and so many bodies everywhere! Human, alien and hybrid all fought tooth, nail, claw, fang, talon, sword, spear and arrow for victory.

At last, however, one small band of soldiers emerged from the mountain itself, screaming as loud as they could.

"WE FOUND IT!" and no one else needed to ask in order to understand.

Ironically enough, the location of the Bellifer tunnel in Camp Reed was right beneath Camp Reed's biology lab. There were four large labs under the mountain (biology, chemistry, physics and geology/astronomy), but the biology lab was the one that the Bellifers had accidently struck while burrowing up from underneath. Now mostly everything inside that lab was dead. The other three lab, on the other hand, were still in relatively good condition. Or at least, they used to be. But with the ongoing battle, it sounded like all four labs were taking one heck of a beating.

"They came up from the Bio Lab!" someone bellowed. "And they're crawling up right now, using various existing exits to break free!" Anyone who was able to hear that cry suddenly realized what perfect sense this made. The reason the Bellifers seemed to be coming from all over was not because they actually were, but rather, because they were using various exits that already dotted the mountain's surface. In the end, there was only one place where the Bellifers were really coming from, and that was in the giant hole now right beneath, and through, the Bio Lab.

As soon as this realization was made, every Gifted went underground at once. This giant team consisted of Edward, Iskala, Quincy, Iris, Artimanna (who had returned only for this one battle), Avalon, Rexus, Rowan, Emma, Scarlet, LaRose (the Camp Steuben Gifted who had arrived before Maggie) and Maggie. Iris was the last one to get the memo, but the moment she had it, she wasted no time in joining the others.

"Nothing like a good Bellifer fight, eh Iris?!" Storm had shouted to the tiny brunette sometime during the ongoing fight. Said tiny brunette whipped around to see the mighty warrior charging towards her with a wild exhilaration in her bright blue eyes. Iris could only laugh, despite how chaotic everything else was. Classic Storm, turning every battle into a joyride! Iris raised her sword in a salute and Storm did likewise. It was a silent invitation for them to fight side by side and Iris was always happy to take up that sort of request. She wasted no time in running to Storm's side, quickly putting their backs together as they became a literal maelstrom of death, able to fight off anything in all 360 degrees. It was some time during this moment in the battle where Iris was called away to join her fellow Gifted down below.

"Gotta go!" she shouted to Storm. The moment she was sure that Storm had heard her, she dared to pull away from the mighty soldier and start running towards one of the larger entry/exit ways of the mountain. She whipped around once to blow a final kiss to Storm, which Storm caught, before they both returned to their respective goals, each silently wishing the other luck, one last time.

The Bio Lab was in ruins, half of it so destroyed that there was nothing separating the lab from the hollowed-out walls of the mountain itself. The same went for the other three labs, Bellifers crawling all around and all over, ruining millions of dollars of scientific equipment in the process. The Gifted fought back with equal vim and verve, eyes burning like fire as Gifts were activated all around to stop the Bellifers.

Edward's skin was solid steel, gleaming and strong as he fought his way through the Bellifer ranks with only a sword and his fists. Iskala was practicing her telekinesis, moving objects and Bellifers around the battlefield. Quincy was busy using his emotional manipulation ability to try and make at least a few Bellifers a little less aggressive. Iris was decaying them to death left and right. Avalon had made himself several sharp weapons out of ice and would sometimes try and freeze the Bellifers' eyes and ears shut. Artimanna was drowning all the ones Avalon missed and helping him create his ice weapons through her water generation. Rexus' clones were all out and active. Rowan was setting anything that came too close on fire. Emma was busy snapping and biting at anything she could get her razor teeth into. Scarlet was trying to hypnotize the Bellifers into fighting each other. LaRose, the Gifted of wind, was trying to summon up a wind strong enough to blow the Bellifers right into the hands of other Gifted. Maggie had since taken on her form of a black mamba, venomous fangs extended and gray eyes glowing dully. Her venom was as quick as her strike, though there was the constant worry of her being stepped on. She was a pretty large snake, but she was still only a snake.

In short, every Gifted was playing their part in this epic battle while their normal comrades held the above ground. The only Gifted not currently with all the others was Princeton. He had been left behind, but for good reason.

"They're just trying to keep you safe!" Gale shouted over the gale of enemies as he and Princeton stood back to back.

"I know!" Princeton shouted back. "But I've been here for nearly five months now! You think they'd let me help!"

"They aren't stupid, boy!" Storm shouted at him as she went barreling past. She hadn't exactly liked being left behind either, but there was still much to do on the surface and she trusted Iris to survive, so she let her wife go on without her.

"What's that supposed to mean?!" Princeton hollered after her, but she had already vanished, tackling yet another Bellifer. Six years of peace had taken nothing from her physically.

"Let it go, son. She didn't mean anything by it," Gale advised, stepping closer to the boy, but something in Princeton had snapped. He brushed past Gale with an uncharacteristic aggression and moved straight towards the place where he knew the other Gifted were. Gale began to yell at him, demanding that he return at once, but Princeton's fury was unmatched, and he ignored his superior, pushing straight to the heart of the mountain.

Once inside, Princeton could hear the sounds of battle below and, thanks to his powerful vision, he could see all kinds of colors darting around through the dark. He could see Iris most prominently, waving her hands all around as Bellifer after Bellifer dropped dead at her feet after only a few seconds of attention each. It was impressive and terrifying. Clearly she had advanced since first starting out a decade ago with her Gift. But Princeton suddenly realized that it wasn't going to be enough. Sure, she was keeping them from escaping, but they were still ramming into her with the intent of wearing out her Gift. And even Iris wasn't immortal. She was going to tire out soon, and then it would be over for her. It was only a matter of time now. And then at last, he noticed it. There was one particular Bellifer about to strike from above.

"IRIS! DUCK!" Princeton planned on jumping down there to help and he even felt his feet leave the level of cliff on which he stood, but his feet never touched the ground again. Instead, he felt like he was flying and he jumped farther out to Iris than expected. Then, instead of tackling the Bellifer as planned, he caught it and then kept sailing through the air until both he and it had smashed into the opposing cave wall. But strangest of all, Princeton felt no pain. Instead, he felt energized and he pushed off the wall, propelling himself back through the air at another Bellifer. Thus, Princeton continued to pinball himself off every Bellifer he came across until _they_ began to cower. But he couldn't blame them. Out of nowhere, he had become a literal pinball of death, bouncing all around the inner cave system and destroying anything he collided with. He had no idea how it was happening, just that it was, and that it was really, really fun!

He was quite literally bouncing off the walls to kill Bellifers and he was so scrawny that it was hard for them to see him clearly enough to hit him back. This knowledge that he was scaring the Bellifers filled his head with pride. He reveled in his unexpected strength and the respect it was getting him. He continued to jump from wall to wall, taking down anything he caught, nearly laughing in murderous mirth at his own strength as he continued to smash Bellifer after Bellifer into wall after wall. No one else noticed him, though. He was moving too fast for any Gifted, even Iris, to notice him. But if anything, this only boosted his ego even more. He was unleashing a surprise attack of his own now!

But then, something happened. It involved Princeton, but even he wasn't entirely sure what went down. Instead, he remembered seeing Iris continue to block the hole to prevent the Bellifers from trying to escape while LaRose and Rowan blocked the exits out of the inner cave system. Fire and wind made a deadly combination, as proof by the literal firewalls they were putting up. And Artimanna washed away any Bellifer that tried to slip past any of these firewalls.

None of this was a problem. On the contrary, this was all just fine and dandy. But then, one particular large Bellifer caught him off guard in a more personal example of a surprise attack.

"Whoa!" Princeton screamed in pain and shock as he felt claws rake down his back and knock him away from the wall he was trying to jump to.

"Princeton?!" he was sure it was Iris who had called his name, but in a blind panic, Princeton ran forward because he instinctively knew his enemy was rearing back for another blow that would kill him this time. He gave a strangled cry as he jumped forward without heed to where he was going.

He had no idea where Iris was, or even if it really had been her who called his name. Instead, he jumped forward as fast as he could, feeling the heat of Rowan's fire growing as he leapt towards another wall. Then, the strangest sensation passed over him. He felt himself smack into the rock wall, but it felt like he was melting into it, literally becoming one with the wall. Then he was lost. All was blackness and noise. Screaming and crumbling. But the harder Princeton tried to find his way out of the wall, the louder the sounds became until they started becoming distorted until it was just one muffled roar until it kind of stopped entirely until everything had vanished from Princeton's sight, sound and mind.


	11. Collapse

The next time Princeton came around, he was in clean bed in a warm room, but as far as his disoriented mind could tell, it was no place he'd ever been before. It didn't look like home, or any of the army camps, but where else could he be? He sat up slowly, eyes barely open from the weariness and pain that he felt. It was made even worse by the bright lights burning over his head. Urgh. Would it kill them to make it a little bit darker? But as if somebody had read his mind, all at once, the room grew much dimmer. Ahhh, that was nice. But who had done it? Princeton forced his eyes open a bit more and saw… nobody. It was just him in a tiny bed in an empty room. What? But Princeton was too tired to do more than faint again after that, falling back into a dreamless darkness.

This happened about three times more before Princeton finally came around for good.

"Ah! He's up! And it's about time too!" a voice hummed cheerfully.

"That voice!" Princeton garbled to himself as he woke up slowly. "I know that voice!"

"Of course you do!" it replied. "It's me! Your old pal, Avalon!" then suddenly, a piece of Princeton's memory was given back to him.

"Avalon! Buddy! You're ok! What are you doing here? Where even are we? And is everybody else ok?" through the haze, Princeton recalled a battle, even though he couldn't remember where that battle had taken place or who all had been there.

"Hey, chill!" Avalon joked and Princeton felt an icy draft flit through his curly black locks. "You had a bit of a fainter back there and you sure did scare us for a time! But it's all better now! You're in the Camp Heath Hospital!"

"The hospital?" Princeton gargled out, sitting up once more. He forced his purple eyes open and saw that Avalon was right. "Oh!"

"Oh!" Avalon mimicked, but relief was clear in eir voice and eir shining cyan eyes, bright literally and metaphorically.

"So what happened again?" Princeton asked. Avalon's smile faded, but ey did concede to tell the tale…

In short, during that final battle against the Bellifers in the heart of Camp Reed's mountain, the entire inner cave system had collapsed, sealing everything and everyone inside. Now, the Bellifers were well and truly trapped. Or at least, the ones who hadn't been crushed to death by falling debris were trapped. Their tunnel had been unintentionally sealed off by all that debris. Unfortunately, though, the Bellifers weren't the only creatures to be trapped under the mountain. All the Gifted who had fought down there were trapped as well.

"What?!" Princeton cried as Avalon finished the dark tale.

"Hey, hey, shhh!" Avalon murmured, trying to calm him before Dr. Mae Long would hear him and come running.

"Sorry," Princeton whispered. "What happened though? What do you mean? Who all was buried in the collapse? And how did you and I escape?" he asked. Avalon gave Princeton another wounded look, but again, ey conceded to tell the tale.

Even though the cave system had collapsed, it still took everybody a moment to realize what was going on when it happened. Because of that, most of the Gifted down below didn't even bother trying to escape until it was too late. They had been so lost in the heat of battle that it wasn't until the larger stones started falling that any of them realized what was going on. LaRose was the first to respond, using what little strength xe had left to hold up the entire system long enough for Avalon, Rowan and LaRose xemself to (mostly) escape. LaRose was using the Gift of wind to try and blow the mountain back up, at least long enough for everyone to climb out before all the entrances were totally flattened shut. This plan worked well enough for the three aforementioned, but no one else made it out in time. Most of them did survive though, surprising as that was.

"Which means all of our Gifted are still alive and well, they're just stuck under a freaking mountain because of the collapse!" Avalon cried, sounding relieved and terrified at the same time. Princeton felt the exact same way. Relief came from the fact that he hadn't been stuck like the others, but it mixed unpleasantly with the guilt that he had been one of the escapees, even though he didn't remember it.

"Is there any way we can help with the collapse?" he asked at once, thinking about Iris, Quincy and all his other friends. Avalon smile sadly.

"All we can do is wait," ey said. "We're trying to find some good excavation tools, but no one wants to accidently cause another collapse and make things even worse for them…" Avalon trailed off for a moment before quiet sobs finally began to shake eir shoulders. Princeton was alert at once, trying to console his friend through hugs and soft, tender words. The two spent nearly an hour like this, just holding each other through the pain of grief, mourning their lost comrades together in silence.

By the next day, Princeton left the hospital, walking on his own two feet with most of his injuries healed because of his fast recovery time.

"Please, be careful!" Mae pleaded as Princeton left the hospital. Princeton had only met her a few times before, but she had always seemed so spritely and warm. Now, though, she looked cold and afraid, and it was really unsettling to see somebody of such authority looking that way. Princeton knew why, however. She missed Iris terribly, and even though she knew the girl was alive, being unable to do anything was killing her.

"Don't worry, Ma'am, I will," Princeton promised softly and politely, trying to convey how well he understood her grief and fear.

"Please, please, they haven't brought my Iris home yet, so be careful until she comes back!" Mae whimpered, still shaking. This collapse didn't just describe the mountain's state, it was describing Mae's mental one too. As strong and brave as she was, mentally and emotionally, even she wasn't immune to the pains of love, and she was genuinely terrified for her daughter. Iris was all she had left, after all. She had lost her husband, one of her best friends, and his daughter, whom she considered a niece, all during the previous war. How could she bear it if she lost Iris too?

Her heart had not stopped its painful pounding since the day she learned that Iris was currently trapped under a mountain. And that had happened a few days ago. The anxiety had only gotten worse with every passing hour as she imagined her poor little girl, buried alive with no resources to escape or even survive. The horror and pain were agonizing. Her one consolation came in the fact that Iris was not alone, but that still didn't fix anything in the long run. Worst of all, though, since Mae was the new head doctor of Camp Heath, she was effectively glued to her post, unable to leave even if only to visit the place her daughter had gotten stuck in.

Princeton, as he stepped back into life at Camp Heath, saw the same type of worry within everyone else. There was a new sense of fear and urgency that was poorly hidden by everyone's attempt at normality. For example, Gale had come back, but Princeton knew at once that it wasn't pretty when he realized that Storm wasn't with him. And Gale, himself, didn't look very well either. He had very dark circles under his eyes. And all the other soldiers of Camp Heath looked like they were on pins and needles, although they tried to go about their daily duties like normal. And Storm had not returned, not because she was dead, but because of Iris. Princeton wasn't surprised, but the thought of how scared Storm must've been made his stomach churn.

"Storm is still at Camp Reed," Gale explained, but that was all he would say. But Princeton didn't need to hear more. The poor woman! Princeton's heart went out to her, and to the wife for whom she was grieving, and to all of the others trapped down there with that wife. Denbar might've had a great victory, but it was also suffering a great loss, and only time would tell if that loss would become permanent.


	12. Tunnelby

But while Gale, Avalon, Princeton and Mae sat on pins and needles back at Camp Heath, Camp Reed was a flurry of activity. Already, plans were being made to evacuate the place, at least until stability could be reached once more. Sure, the mountain was no longer collapsing, but it still wasn't safe enough for people to live on. Let alone an entire war camp! And even if the mountain itself had been left unharmed, which it hadn't, enough buildings were ruined that there was no place for the Camp Reed soldiers to live either way. Because of that, they were following in Camp Greene's footsteps and moving into another camp for refuge, at least for a little. This time, however, they were off to Camp Steuben, because Camp Heath was already full with Camp Greene soldiers. Oliver was helping move everyone over, as much as it pained her to leave her brother. It was clear to anyone that saw her that she was panicking for her brother's life, but she did her best to remain strong and collected through it all.

"There are a lot of us still alive," Pascal warned Theodore as they discussed the logistics of moving one camp into another yet again. Pascal was fairly banged up, but his mind was in perfect working order and he was able to walk on his own. That was all he needed to do in order to insist upon helping in the planning. He was missing a large patch of his blond-white hair, revealing a shining scalp beneath it. It would've been comical, had the atmosphere not been so tense.

"Of course! Take as much space as you need!" Theodore thundered in return, earnestness in his scarred face. He was still full of worry for the sake of his own wife who was part of the group stuck down below, but he was able to conceal fear with a kind, cheerful façade. He was going back to that time when he had led Camp Steuben in his wife's absence. It was not a fun task, but he knew how to do it. The true deputies of Camp Steuben, the Powers girls, were back home, looking after things while Theodore remained at Camp Reed.

"Ah! Thank you, then," Pascal looked relieved at how welcoming Theodore was being. It was heartwarming to know that he cared.

But while Theodore and Pascal talked logistics on how to move all the army camps home, Eastla and Storm were arguing on how to free the trapped Gifted. The two had never gotten along before, but now they were locked in very, very heated debate.

"We just need to start digging!" Storm snarled, eyes wild with fear.

"And risk another whole freaking collapse?!" Eastla snorted, fear raising her voice to an unnaturally high pitch. Maybe her own spouse was alive and well, not trapped at all, but that didn't mean she didn't have loved ones stuck under the mountain too. Storm was selfish to forget that.

"Well either that, or we wait for them to starve!" Storm shouted. Gifted or not, every life had its limits and surely the Gifted were reaching theirs. They could only survive on nothing for so long before even they succumbed to death's grasp.

"So the options are either a quick or slow death?" Eastla sneered, their old rivalry returning in spades due to the high stakes of the situation at hand.

"I'd rather we actually do something than just wait! Not that you people would get it!" Storm shot back. That was a low blow and even she knew it.

"Hey now! We're all friends here and I won't tolerate pointing fingers!" Jason said, coming over from his previous task to try and pry the two arguing ladies apart. He turned to Storm first with a displeased expression.

"I would've expected more maturity from you!" he remarked.

"You're one to talk!" she shot back, enraged that he would dare say such a thing to her.

"At least I'm trying to help," Jason answered evenly. "It's your wife down there, but you haven't helped at all so far! You've only yelled at others, accusing them of being as useless as you are being now!" his words were cruel, but true, and they finally struck a chord with Storm. She flinched and backed down submissively. Jason watched her coldly before turning to Eastla.

"Now love, I know you're scared and stressed too, but we must go about this rationally. No more fighting with Storm, ok? That's my job," he said, voice soft and tender as he said the first part of his sentence, but then playful and joking when he said the last.

"Ok," Eastla agreed, grinning despite herself.

"Now that that's settled, let's get to work," Jason sighed, relieved at how well that had dissipated. Out of the corner of his brown eyes, he saw Storm stepping forward slightly to listen to his plan, another sign of submission. How times had changed! Never would he have imagined himself bossing her around so boldly, and her listening no less, but life had a strange way of always choosing the most unpredictable route it could. In the past, Jason had been terrified of Storm and she had despised him. Now, he was able to reprimand her properly, and she was willing to listen! Who would've ever imagined such a thing?!

While Jason tried to keep the peace between Storm and Eastla, and help coordinate an escape for the trapped Gifted, government aid finally came in. It wasn't what anyone had expected, however. It was even more! It was the rest of the Mapp family, plus three more. Two of them were new faces, but one was eerily familiar…

"Danielle Boemker!" Pascal was the first to recognize her. Danielle smiled fondly back at Pascal, recognizing him as well. She and him had flown the aircraft that dropped the nuke on the Bellifer Burrow at the end of the previous war. She had changed so much since the last time the two of them had been together! She wasn't that little girl he used to see. On the contrary, she was 23 years old now, a full adult by five years! She was taller and there was a new sort of maturity to her face, but her old tablet was still glued to her arm, just like always. That much wouldn't change.

The two new faces with her were her boyfriend, Clemont, and his little sister, Bonnie. All three of them lived together in a state just outside of Labelle, though all three of them had wildly different careers. Danielle worked as a computer and tech programmer, Clemont as a mechanic and robotics designer/builder, and Bonnie as an animal rescuer/caretaker/breeder/healer. Despite their differences, however, all three of them were very devoted to their country, and their army. When Chief sent out the message about the Gifted being trapped under a mountain, Danielle and Clemont were among the first responders, right alongside the Mapp family. The Mapps had come back partly in order to help fix their once-beloved camp and partly to make sure that their daughter, Eastla, and her husband, Jason, were safe.

"Mom! Dad!" Eastla greeted her parents as they came into view.

"Eastla!" Southlynn's reaction was warm. She ran over to her daughter and hugged and kissed her tightly. Northson, meanwhile, gave Eastla a tight-lipped smile. Even after six years, the two of them still had a very hard time connecting on an emotional level. Although things were better than they ever were before, this wasn't saying much, and there was still a lot of distance between father and daughter. Eastla was a little bit stung by her father's cold reaction to her and she even felt a flash of fury rising up in her chest, but she had the good sense to just let it go. She would be satisfied in knowing that at least her mother was happy that she was ok. Southlynn greeted her son in law with the same warmth she had greeted her daughter. Northson was even colder to Jason than he had been to Eastla. Slightly intimidated by the man, however, Jason only nodded politely back, not nearly as brave as Eastla when it came to defying such a brilliant individual.

The very last person to arrive was Westford Mapp, Eastla's little brother. With him was his husband of one year, Bartholomew "Bert" Barnaby. Despite his posh name, Bert was a very relaxed fellow. He was also a head wider and taller than Westford. The two of them had met at some sort of community service event a few years back and the rest was history.

"Hey! Little brother!" Eastla wrapped Westford into a bear hug which he returned in full. It was one of the rare cases of siblings that actually got along, aside from the Alreths. Westford mumbled a relieved and delighted greeting as Eastla squeezed him tight. Then at last, Eastla released him.

"Big brother!" she declared, having to tilt her head back to see Bert's face. Bert laughed and scooped her up into a bear hug before she could do it to him. Westford and Southlynn watched with warm smiles while Northson watched impassively.

Once the farewells were done, however, it was time to get back to work.

"So, what else did Chief send with you?" Pascal asked as he addressed his predecessor.

"Well, she only sent us," Southlynn admitted to him. "But we have some supplies and ideas."

"Let's hear them!" Pascal insisted. Southlynn gestured for Danielle and Clemont to step forward.

"I call it 'Tunnelby'!" Clemont said at once. Before anyone could ask what "it" was, he revealed that he had been dragging something large along behind him the entire time. It looked like a big power drill, but it had the option of multiple types, sizes and speeds for the drills.

"Oooh," Jason murmured. Beside him, Storm rolled her eyes, already fed up with this Clemont boy, even though he'd only said four words. But that was just Storm. She wasn't Danielle's biggest fan to start with, so seeing her back with likeminded friends wasn't exactly a good thing for her. But Danielle had grown up. She still had moments of immaturity, but they were few and far between, and she was no longer so easily provoked by Storm or her insults and disdain. Instead, she stood calmly beside her boyfriend as he explained what Tunnelby could do.

"With multiple drills working at multiple speeds, you'll get far more precision and accuracy with far less hassle or danger!" he bragged.

"So you think this is safe enough to drill us into the mountain without causing a bigger collapse?" Eastla asked at last.

"I designed and built it myself!" Clemont promised confidently, large round glasses gleaming white in the sun. He was the only person in Denbar under the age of about 90 who needed them. Usually, the body didn't start deteriorating until the age of 80, but Clemont ended up injuring his eyes in the past with another experiment of his. Both of his eyes still worked, but he had accidently caused a premature decay in them and, thusly, his seeing ability. The rest was history, resulting in very large, very round, very thick glasses. He wore them with pride, however, considering his damaged eyes to be like battle scars, in some sense.

"You really should've at least come up with a better name," Bonnie chastised suddenly. Unlike Clemont, her eyes were perfect. Clemont ignored her in favor of continuing to introduce Tunnelby to the rest of the group.

"I just so happened to have this exact model ready for a situation just like this!" he bragged, missing the incredulous looks he got for such a remark.

"It should tunnel directly to where the Gifted are because of its radar systems, and like I said before, its different drill sizes will prevent instances of over or under-digging! We'll be able to get right to our trapped comrades in no time with no hassle at all! All I have to do is push one little button!"

"Well, let's test it out," Westford said at last, and he led the boy and his machine over to the site of the collapse.

"With pleasure!" Clemont responded, then he hit a button on the machine. The machine began to sputter to life, drills spinning smoothly.

"It's working!" Eastla exclaimed in delight as the Tunnelby drill began to dig. Southlynn clasped her hands together hopefully. For a moment, everything was perfect, and Tunnelby managed to dig very deep very fast but, just like Clemont promised, not a single stone was unnecessarily moved. He was maximizing efficiency was minimizing potential damage.

"Cool!" Bert admired Tunnelby. Even Northson looked mildly impressed. Sadly, it didn't take long for Tunnelby to start to shudder and spark.

"Oh no! It's overheating! And I think one of the drills got jammed by the loose rock!" Clemont panicked as he began hitting buttons on his controller. This only served to increase Tunnelby's shuddering and sparking.

"Should we be concerned?" Jason asked, and even Storm seemed to agree on that. Before anyone could answer, though-

"Oh! Everybody, get down!" Danielle shouted, then she yanked Clemont backward while shielding Bonnie and all three of them hit the ground just as Tunnelby exploded into an inferno wires and scrap metal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Penguinlover611, here's your own personal and requested chapter with you and your "crush". Hope you liked it :P
> 
> Thumbs up to anyone who know the characters that Penguin is referencing here.


	13. LaRose's Rescue

By some miracle, despite Tunnelby's massive explosion, not much damage occurred as a result. The worst anyone came out with were a few bruises and a face full of suit. No one was seriously hurt or killed and there hadn't been another collapse. In addition, even though there was a new hole where the collapse site was, it wasn't too terribly big or dangerous. It couldn't have been more than six by six feet. But even so, morale still ended up in the gutter following Tunnelby's tragic and sudden end.

"Well, that sucked," Westford coughed as he sat up, wiping ash from his face. Beside him, Jason sat up with a moan, hair sticking out everywhere. Bert coughed heartily as ash fell from his mouth by the handful.

"Gross!" he complained, face as dark as Jason's hair from the cinders. Northson no longer looked impressed. Bonnie was busy wiping her burning eyes and Pascal was doing likewise, hair singed off yet again. In short, no one was happy and everyone was covered in grime and dirt.

"Oh, great job!" Storm snapped, face black with soot and hot with fury. "So effective! It's not like you could've just killed us all!"

"Hey, hey, enough!" Eastla chastised quickly. "They were only trying their best!"

"Ha! Best? If you can consider giving us an explosion-bound machine their best, then I agree!" Storm shot back. Nearby, Clemont and Bonnie looked close to tears while Danielle watched over them both with concern and defeat upon her face. Her tablet was ok though, still firmly on her arm like always. It had somehow stayed on and intact during the explosion and wasn't even cracked.

"Knock it off, Storm," Pascal and Bert both warned, but Storm only glared back at them defiantly.

"No! That machine's explosion could've killed us! Or more importantly, the people down below!" she pointed to the ground as she got up.

"Oh, just shut it already!" Danielle dared to say. Storm opened her mouth to snarl back at her when Clemont interrupted. His spiky gold hair was coated with ash and his big round glasses were black. As was the strange, somewhat ugly brown jumpsuit he wore.

"She's right," he said miserably. "Not a single one of my inventions has ever managed to stay in one piece for more than five minutes!" the boy heaved a sad sigh. "I thought I had it this time. I thought it wouldn't blow up! But that's what I say with every invention…"

"You mean this is recurring?" Storm sounded horrified. "How in Denbar have you not been fired?" she cried. Clemont gave her a pained look.

"Enough!" Danielle spat again. "He has a job because even if his inventions never work, he's crazy smart regardless! And he never surrenders!" the smaller blond turned away to kiss Clemont's cheek while Storm lowered her own gaze apologetically.

"I'm sorry," she muttered. "Really. I just… I'm just… stressed out," she said.

"We all are," Southlynn murmured, sensing a genuine change in her and being the first to commend it. "But we must keep our heads. You aren't the only one missing a loved one," she added. Then she and Westford looked meaningfully at Storm.

"I know," Storm repeated. "I know. And Clemont, it really wasn't half bad of an idea or a machine," she offered weakly.

"Thanks," he replied, still sniffling. Danielle continued to comfort him, though her hugs were awkward because of that stupid tablet on her arm.

"What do we do now?" Bonnie whimpered, having finally cleaned her face off, though there was still soot in her blond ponytail. But once again, answers were halted. This time, though, it wasn't an explosion that cut them off. It was a hand bursting through the rubble.

The few people still in Camp Reed were suddenly in a tizzy as they rushed around to get LaRose proper care. Meanwhile, LaRose xemself was in a state of shock. It was sheer luck alone that xe had survived alone down there for so long, apart from the main group yet still very deep below the mountain's surface. What had happened, as xe explained, was relatively simple, but still very horrific. Xe had used xyr Gift of wind to try and stabilize the mountain, but it failed, and xe ended up slipping, finally forced to let the mountain continue to crash down. Sadly, this all happened while xe was still trying to climb up and out. That was why xe had been trapped in the mountain, but not with all the others. Xe had been halfway to freedom when xyr strength gave out and caused everything to fall back into place, effectively trapping xem inside the mountain.

"It was all thanks to your machine, really," xe said, looking at Clemont in pure relief and gratitude. "It moved just enough stone for me to push the last little layer out!" xe thanked Clemont over and over again while Clemont blushed hotly.

"Well, I'm glad I could be of some use!" he stuttered, voice cracking a little bit. Danielle only smiled proudly.

"See? Told you your inventions weren't rubbish!" she encouraged. "You helped in LaRose's rescue!"

"Yeah! My big brother can do anything!" Bonnie agreed, clapping Clemont's back. The poor young man looked close to fainting with pride.

"Alright, alright, let's not kill LaRose's savior!" Pascal interrupted gently, steering the focus back on the rescued Gifted in question. Xe grinned weakly, large dark circles under xyr cloudy-colored eyes. Xyr normally-ruddy complexion and long, silky dark hair were both in need of some cleaning up, xyr skin looking stretched over xyr bones and xyr hair covered in oil, dust and blood. On the bright side, though, xe had not sustained any fatal or life-altering injuries. There were a few bumps, bruises, cuts and minor breaks to attend to, but that was all. LaRose was ushered quickly to the almost empty Camp Reed Hospital. There were a few patients, but not many.

"Where is everyone?" xe asked in concern as everyone entered the nearly-empty hospital wing.

"Evacuated to Camp Steuben," Pascal replied, shooting another thankful smile at Theodore who, with Rowan and Dr. Lockewood, was helping the precious few patients still needing a bit more fixing up before they could follow the rest of the crowd, led by Oliver and the Powers twins, east.

"LaRose!" Rowan cried out in delight the moment xe caught sight of xyr fellow Gifted. Xe wasted no time in sprinting over to LaRose's side, stopping mere inches away. Rowan hadn't been quite this lively since before the mountain battle. Of course, Rowan had never been very loud or extroverted, preferring to be quiet and peaceful, but even xe could get super excited in times like this. Xe ran as fast as xyr tight hospital uniform would allow. Xyr long, frizzy brown hair was tied back to keep it out of xyr face and xyr bright orange eyes were glowing with warmth and joy.

"Rowan," LaRose smiled back and the two embraced.

Once the reunion was done, however, Rowan wasted no time in demanding how all the other Gifted were doing. Rowan had wanted to help in the excavation, insistent that xe could use fire to help melt the stones around the site to dig everyone out, but xe was always denied. The reason was the fact that as useful as fire could be in destroying rock, there was no guarantee that melting the rocks would be a good idea. Because of that, Rowan had been forced into doing hospital duty instead. A bit of extra help was needed since most of the other doctors had already left.

"Here! Bring LaRose here!" Dr. Lockewood urged, waving LaRose over to a bed that she was standing beside. LaRose went to it gratefully, sinking down onto the clean and soft surface in pure relief. Then guilt pierced xyr heart. While xe was enjoying this luxury, xyr friends were still down below, lost underneath tons and tons of unyielding stone. They had no soft, comfy beds to go to like xe did.

"Is there anything we can do to help?" LaRose asked in reference to those friends as xe was worked on by Rowan, Theodore and Dr. Lockewood.

"Well, we were hoping that you might be able to tell us where the other Gifted might've been in relation to you," Pascal began. "If we knew where they were exactly, we might be able to excavate that particular spot."

"Exact location, huh?" LaRose asked. Xe tapped xyr chin before replying slowly.

"If I can remember correctly, which I may not, I remember being in one of the dissection labs. Most of the others were there with me. I think the walls must've taken enough hits that the "roof" kind of collapsed on us. I was able to blow a few of those pieces of roof back up and out and climb after them, but I know for a fact I ended up walking, well, _running_ , several paces in a horizontal path before I was cut off. Given that information, I'd say that the Gifted would've only been about 15 feet below me, but anywhere between 15 and 30 to my right," xe moved xyr hands in attempt to illustrate how far xe had made it from the main group.

It was all Pascal needed, though, before he narrowed his gray eyes pensively. Maybe LaRose didn't remember much, but xe remembered just enough to tell Pascal where the Gifted were at and, with that info, Pascal could start digging in a more precise location instead of just trying to imagine where everyone might've collapsed. That was all he needed to know at the moment. Already, another plan was formulating in his mind as he envisioned making a drill more like a needle that would pierce the exact location of the Gifted. Or maybe he could see if Rowan might be able to unleash a fire blast that would almost resemble a lazer, small but powerful. Once that small hole was created, maybe a pulley system could be built to lower a rope down for any survivors to climb up. A brief chill filled his heart. He hoped that there still _were_ survivors. It had been multiple days, after all. But Pascal encouraged himself. If LaRose had survived, surely the others had as well. He would just need to get them out soon, because if LaRose's condition was anything to go on, the Gifted wouldn't last more than maybe another few days more…

While Pascal excused himself, Rowan and the Mapps to go and plan a more precise rescue mission for those lost down below, everyone else stayed back at the hospital to help with the injured, aside from LaRose. The moment everyone else was gone, though, Storm managed to get a private word in with the recently rescued Gifted.

"How's Iris?" she asked LaRose as soon as she dared.

"I don't know," LaRose replied regretfully. "Last I saw, she was doing fairly well, still upright and mostly unscathed, but who can say if that's changed in the past few days?" LaRose fell silent then, but xe couldn't help but wonder if xe hadn't accidently crushed Iris when xyr wind powers failed. The thought made xyr stomach churn. Storm sighed in barely-concealed anger. None of it was directed at LaRose, but the awful worry she felt for Iris was becoming incredibly unbearable and to think that LaRose had no clue what had befallen her was maddening. LaRose was the only one who might've had an inkling, Storm wasn't about to let that chance go.

"Are you absolutely sure?" she demanded. "Did you not see her try to escape?"

"No," LaRose promised, moving as far away from Storm as xe could in that little hospital bed. Xe felt bad that xe couldn't give the woman more assurance, but at the same time, xe didn't exactly want her infamous temper to be broken over xyr head. Storm saw the wounded soldier scoot away and felt bad at once, a rare thing for her. She took a step away from the bed in a tactile apology for frightening xem.

"If it makes you feel any better, I do understand," LaRose whispered as Storm stepped away.

"What?" Storm half-whispered half-snapped, both curious and offended that xe would dare insist xe could understand the emotional agony she was in, not knowing whether or not her soul mate was still alive. LaRose hadn't been married for five years, what did xe know?

"One of the Gifted down there, Maggie Marnier, is my girlfriend," LaRose broke off, one sniffle escaping xym. Storm's hardened heart softened just a little. Ok, so maybe having a girlfriend wasn't quite the same as having a wife, but hearing LaRose admit to having a lost lover down below made Storm remember, once more, that she wasn't the only one suffering right now. And even on a nonromantic level, how many platonic friends were worried sick over the fate of their loved ones? LaRose's rescue would be a ray of hope, but they needed more than one little ray…

Storm ran tired fingers through frazzled hair, trying to get her breathing and heart rate under control. Worrying would not help Iris, though the anxiety that came from wondering whether or not she was even still alive was hard to beat. She stormed out of the hospital room at once, trying to find Pascal and the Mapps. There had to be some way she could help! Aside from doing hospital duty, that is. She may not have been a thinker or strategist, but some of her plans in the past had been really good, and she was willing to put forth any option now if it meant she would get to see her wife's face again. She raced through the empty halls of Camp Reed, mind moving a million miles an hour as she tried to think of a way to save Iris' life. She would not let Iris die. She would not lose Iris. She simply could not bear the thought.


	14. Tomb

"Do you think we'll ever get out?" Iris asked weakly. Although LaRose had not seen it, Iris did indeed end up getting hit by a stone. It knocked her down so hard that the fall broke two of her ribs. The injury was not fatal, nor was it even that gory, and her Gifted side was already healing it, but it was still very painful and the longer it went without proper medical attention, the worse it got. It was in times like this that she wished Kit could've been there. Ey could fixed her, and the rest of them, in a snap! But ey was dead, and nothing would ever bring em back.

"I don't know," Scarlet was the one who replied. She was the most unscathed out of the group and she had since made herself the unofficial leader by proxy of her age. That thought made her heart break. As of right now, she, at the age of about 38, was the oldest soldier down here. Everyone else stuck in this darkened tomb was less than that by at least several years. Everyone trapped down here with her was so young… They still had such a long life ahead of them! Scarlet's heart ached at the injustice of it all and she greatly pitied everyone stuck down here with her. They were all too young to die and still had so much life left that they deserved to live. But life was cruel.

Scarlet's dark eyes surveyed the nearly pitch black room. The only light came from a precious few wires and bulbs that were still somehow lit. They were what remained of the Bio Lab, some of them flickering from the few tiles left on the ceiling and some flickering from the one wall that still remained. Through that dim light, Scarlet could see several corpses, including Edward and Rexus. Edward had been killed in the escape attempt, crushed by a rock. Hard as his skin was, even he could not withstand a falling boulder. Rexus, meanwhile, had been slain in battle. Out of himself and his nine clones, he was the sixth to go, the other clones vanishing the moment he was killed.

Everyone else, however, was awake, if only barely. Emma was curled up in Quincy's arms, weeping softly. Maggie lay a few feet away, on her back and staring listlessly at the dark and stony ceiling hanging above her head. Iskala was sitting alone, pink eyes staring unseeingly at Edward's corpse. She had taken his death the hardest. This was because, if she had been literally anywhere else during the time the mountain started to collapse, Edward wouldn't have had to push her out of the way to save her life and sacrifice his instead. In her pink eyes, it was her fault that he was dead. She was to blame for Edward's passing. Now what was Iskala supposed to do? Edward had had a boyfriend! If she ever got out, would she have the courage to find and face that boyfriend and admit to him that it was her fault that Edward was never coming home again? If only she had been standing anywhere else! Even if it had only been by an inch, it might've saved them both!

Artimanna was the only reason any of them were still alive at all, using her Gift of water to keep everyone at least a little clean and hydrated, though she was getting weaker every day. She estimated that she had about three days' worth of water left in her before she became too weak to work. There still wasn't much to eat, either, except for a few plants that were stored in the corners of the lab, or uncooked Bellifer meat, which was a bit risky for several reasons. It was also then that everyone wished that Rowan hadn't escaped. They could've used some light and warmth, not just for the food, but for small comfort.

And as for Iris? Well, she was curled up at Scarlet's side. Scarlet was cradling her, consoling her. As much as Scarlet loved everyone in that underground tomb, Iris was still her favorite, simply because they had known each other the longest.

"Please don't say we're going to die and decay here," Iris murmured, hugging Scarlet gently and nuzzling her face into the woman's chest. She found it a bitter irony that her Gift was so death-based. Not only did that make it entirely useless here, but it wasn't exactly the most cheerful of Gifts in this type of scenario and although Iris had caused a great many things to decay to death, she never thought she might be one of them. She was scared, as well as hurt.

And she missed Storm dearly. She wanted to see that brave, brilliant wife of hers at least one more time before death did them part. Iris really had imagined that they would've shared a long, happy life together. It wasn't supposed to end like this. And the mere thought alone that the two would never meet again made her weep. All she wanted was to see Storm one last time. She loved her too much to go without a final farewell. But with each passing day, this place became more and more of her tomb, and no one ever left their tomb once inside.

"I don't know, Dolly" Scarlet repeated, unwilling to let Iris wallow in such despair, but also unwilling to lie or sugarcoat. "But I do know that the people above ground are looking for us," she insisted. Her words did little to boost morale though because, as inspiring and true as they were, it had been several days and there still wasn't even the smallest sign of help. Hope was fading as quickly as everyone's collective lives. Passionate speeches did nothing but raise bitterness and skepticism now. Scarlet fell into an unhappy silence, knowing that nothing she said would help her comrades. Her heart ached for them and her desire to protect them was immense. But all she could do was suffer silently alongside them. She hugged Iris a little bit tighter, thought lovingly about her husband, and continued to wait in the dark.

Iris, meanwhile, was thinking about the battle where it had all gone so wrong so fast. She had been so lost in the heat of battle, watching the life drain out of any Bellifer she turned her purple eyes on, when suddenly, sometime during the end of the battle, something big and dark had gone whizzing by her head. She had been right in the middle of her most recent kill when it happened.

"What was that?!" she growled to herself, anger rising with her bloodlust. She turned in the direction of the black projectile and then all that anger became horror. Although the black projectile was nowhere to be seen, a large hole in the wall where it must've hit was. And the hole was getting bigger and bigger by the second until it became painfully clear…

"THE MOUNTAIN IS FALLING!" Iris bellowed. She had to repeat herself a few times, but the message did finally get around, and when it sunk in, everybody began to panic. Screams of anger became shrieks of terror as large chunks of rock fell from above, taking down the rest of the Biology Lab. Glass, steel and cement came crashing down with the stones. Lights blew out, expensive equipment was annihilated. The collapse of the Biology Lab triggered a collapse in the other three. Gifted and Bellifer both began to reach upward in a frantic attempt to escape before it was too late. Claws and nails scrabbled against falling stone as bodies were dragged up against the downward pull of the collapse.

Iris lost sight of everything except one little dot of light. It was small, but it was her only hope. There was no time to be scared or to lament how impossible it was to reach such a far off exit before something squished her. She only continued to climb, barely aware of the many bodies squirming and climbing beside her. In that one moment, animosity was forgotten and it became every creature for themselves. All around them, stones, glass, metal and walls continued to break while boulders and ceilings fell down.

At one point, Iris thought she saw Princeton, but she didn't have more than a millisecond to see and dwell upon it. Then she felt somebody grabbing her, but she was too weak to do more than let it happen. Instead, she only listened to the sound of the world literally falling apart around her, hoping that her death would be quick. The one plus to all of this was that, with the world collapsing around her, enough of it got caught in the Bellifer hole leading into the tunnel that the tunnel was firmly sealed off. Every Bellifer still inside the mountain was now slated for death. It was during this time that Iris ended up being caught by a flying rock, struck squarely in the chest and thrown away from her perch on what used to be the Biology Lab's far wall. The hole she'd been trying to reach was sealed up as she hit the ground again. The person that had grabbed her earlier was still clinging to her, though she was hardly aware of anything expect herself and the pain in her torso and back. At one point, she felt the person crawl over her, like they were trying to protect her. As if it would help…

But, in the end, the collapse finally stopped and Iris and most of the other Gifted were somehow still alive. Perhaps it was because they were small, human-sized, and thusly able to hide from the stones where the large Bellifers were not. And after the shaking and screaming had stopped, Iris was finally able to realize who it was that had grabbed her, who it was that had shielded her with their own body. It had been none other than Scarlet herself. She clearly had not lost her fondness of the tiny brunette and had risked death to protect her. Iris managed to thank her once before blacking out. It did not last long, but it still sent the survivors into another panic in case they ended up losing another friend. But in the end, Iris did manage to come back around, though not by much. And she and the others had been in nearly in the same exact position ever since.

A week passed and the only time any of them ever moved was to receive water, scavenge for food, or relieve themselves of waste. Other than that, though, they were entirely still and silent, nearly comatose. It really was just like a tomb. And, just like a tomb, those inside had no idea what was going on in the land of the living, which seemed worlds and worlds away from the mire of death that they were stuck in.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: I'm starting up my next Pride Anthology today so I won't be updating this story as frequently, just a heads-up!


	15. Worth a Shot

Scarlet was waiting for a sign from Camp Reed, but none seemed to be coming. In Camp Heath, however, a plan had finally emerged.

"Are you sure?" Avalon asked Princeton as the plan was finalized. The two were eating lunch together. Storm was still gone at Camp Reed, Gale was sitting alone at the leader table with a very tired and sad expression and the rest of camp, though it tried to carry on like normal, was full of the same kind of worry. Even if not every soldier was close to the Gifted, they didn't need to be in order to feel the pain of losing some very wonderful soldiers to a tragic and stupid event. But through all the uncertainty, Princeton was starting to feel a real beacon of hope in his soul.

"Well, do you have any better idea?" the purple-eyed apprentice asked back with a dry smile.

"No," Avalon conceded. "It just sounds dangerous."

"Of course!" Princeton snorted. "But our friends are in far worse danger than us."

"Point taken," Avalon nodded. "So when do you want to leave?"

"Right now," Princeton responded, standing up from the table.

"Without any consent?" Avalon frowned. Despite the dire situation, Princeton grinned back down at em.

"I _am_ Iris' apprentice, remember?" he asked and Avalon couldn't disagree with that. Without further ado, then, the pair took leave of the dining hall under the ruse that they were just going to go out and train together. In actuality, they were catching a ride west.

During the ride, the pair went over the plan one last time. The first step would be for Avalon to use eir ice powers to help move some of the rock and debris out of the way, but replace it with ice in case one false move triggered another collapse. The second step would be where Princeton came in. He was going to climb through the hole that Avalon would've created. It didn't need to be very big. Then, once inside, Princeton was going to go and help every single Gifted climb back out. That seemed like an impossibly large task, but Princeton had something that would help him along. He had his Gift. Finally, at long last, he'd figured it out.

"Don't you remember at all?" Avalon had asked, back when Princeton was still recovering in the hospital. They were both trying to figure out what the heck had happened and how in Denbar Princeton had managed to escape. Avalon emself had managed to climb out one of the holes LaRose's wind made during xyr own escape. But what of Princeton? He'd just kind of appeared in the middle of the mountain top, on his back and entirely unconscious. But how? No one could recall seeing him emerging from one of the escape routes. He had just kind of appeared.

"No," Princeton replied with a sad seriousness that showed that he was being honest. "I really only remember being in that Biology Lab, and then just suddenly speeding up towards a wall only to kind of just get zoomed upwards until I was suddenly out, just lying there on the ground," he shook his head. "I know it sounds crazy and impossible and I understand if you don't believe me, but I assure you it's what happened," he said, then he tried again to describe that strange sensation. All he could remember was being sucked into the wall, flattened against it. He ran forward and found himself moving upward. It was like he was climbing even though he wasn't holding onto the wall. He continued to move and ended up going higher and higher faster and faster until he broke the surface of the mountain. It had to have been LaRose's wind, because what else could've explained that kind of sensation? But how had LaRose been able to scoop him up when LaRose had been too focused on plowing a path upward?

Princeton ended up explaining that event several times over, Avalon rubbing eir temples as ey tried to think on what it could be.

"You might've found your Gift," ey suggested.

"But what is it?!" Princeton cried. This was a theory he, himself, had held, but that did still leave the question as to what the heck power one had that would allow them to climb up a wall without feeling like they were climbing.

"Let's see…" Avalon muttered. "Speed, climbing, running, zooming through the air, melding into the wall…" ey continued to mumble under eir breath. Princeton did the same, though he was entirely silent, purple eyes shut as he tried to think. Melding into the wall. Blasting off. Up to the light. From the light. Moving across the wall. Moving up the wall. Running and walking, yet still being able to climb and move vertically. Moving in three dimensions while being stuck in two. He tried to focus specifically on that strong feeling of being pulled into the wall and becoming one with it, etched onto it like some cave painting. He tried to think of that exact point where he and the wall blended together.

"Try touching the hospital wall," Avalon finally suggested. It might've sounded silly but, at this point, Princeton was all for it. It was worth a shot! He turned to the cream-colored walls and reached out. His fingers met a cold, solid slab and nothing happened.

"Try harder," Avalon insisted. Princeton acquiesced. He began to push physically. But then he remembered what Iris had told him about her own Gift. Although it manifested in the physical realm, it was triggered in the mental. Even though she could decay things by touching them, what made her touch so deadly in the first place was the use of her will. Princeton tried to imagine himself melding into the wall then, mentally willing himself onward and inward. He was still touching the wall, but he was no longer pushing. Instead, all he used was his brain, pushing his imagination. "Sweet Denbar!" Avalon declared. Princeton felt himself shoot awake and his body was torn from the wall in a violent jolt.

"What? What is it? What happened?" Princeton couldn't help but sound cross as he silently chastised Avalon for ruining that moment for him. He had missed what had happened thanks to Avalon's interruption. And it had taken quite the amount of focus, trying to merge himself with a wall.

"My dude," Avalon began. "I think you might be a shadow manipulator."

"A what?" Princeton echoed with a scoff.

"Just try that again. With your eyes open this time," Avalon's voice was hushed with awe. It was enough to alert Princeton that ey wasn't joking this time, so he turned back to the wall reluctantly and stared it down, imaging himself becoming one with it. Then he understood what Avalon meant. It wasn't him or the wall that was special. It was what stood between them. It was his shadow. If he tried hard enough, he could merge with it, become it. He could inhabit his own shadow. He had the Gift of shadow manipulation. Sweet Denbar indeed.

After that discovery, Princeton had practiced his Gift nonstop, partly out of sheer relief at finally finding it, and partly because he finally began to understand what had happened down there in the Camp Reed mountain. All that fast and fancy moving hadn't been his normal body. Without even realizing it, his bouncing from wall to wall had been him literally shadow-traveling. He was able to move so quickly because a shadow could appear on a wall 20 feet away from the shadow's owner. His pinball fighting tactic had been him leaping from wall to wall in the form of a sentient shadow, a la Rowan's flames, which had given off light which, in turn, had created shadows...

It also explained his escape. Princeton's physical body had turned into a shadow one last time and raced up a tunnel that led to the surface of the mountain and the moment he reached the surface, his shadow form spat him back out as a solid and physical entity again. It was why he had just appeared in the middle of the battlefield instead of near one of the exit points. Shadows could move very "quickly", once again in the sense that they could travel great distances from their owners with little effort.

So now Princeton knew what his Gift was. After five months of shame, embarrassment, anger, uncertainty and hopelessness, he had it.

"It's about time too," Avalon chuckled as Princeton came out of the wall again, smooth black form becoming three-dimensional again.

"Yeah, really," Princeton gave a laugh. As gloomy and tumultuous as everything was, he couldn't help but be immensely pleased with himself.

"Bet finding your gender identity hadn't been this hard," Avalon remarked with another smirk. "I know I had an easier time."

"Oh, definitely," Princeton indulged in the joke. "I had always known I was really a boy," he said. "But I hadn't had a clue what my Gift was!"

But then his smile faded just slightly and he allowed one small confession to leave his lips. It was one he hadn't told anyone else. Not his parents, his best friends or even his mentor. But now he was telling Avalon, who was like an older sibling to him.

"In all honesty," he said. "I remember worrying that having that sex-reassignment surgery might've stunted my Gift somehow."

"What? Nonsense!" Avalon laughed. "Don't you remember Rexus? He's a transman just like you and his Gift worked fine."

"I knew _that_ ," Princeton waved Avalon off. "But Rexus is Rexus. As far as we knew, I might've done something wrong when I got that surgery. And I did get it done at a younger age than Rexus, so that might've been a damaging factor too."

"Nonsense," Avalon repeated. "There's never anything wrong with surgery, whether life-saving, cosmetic or something in between. That physical change will not change what is deep inside, and I'm not just talking about hormones. I'm talking even deeper. After all, you knew you were a boy even when you still had a female body. All the surgery did was help the outside match the inside. In a similar vein, you knew you were always Gifted, it just took a bit of time for the exterior and interior to match. You know what I mean?"

After that little heart to heart, combined with Princeton's self-discovery, the two Gifted had grown even closer than before. But even though Princeton had finally sorted that aspect of himself out, there was still a lot of stuff to do. It was around that time, during one of his practice sessions in trying to become a shadow, that he came up with a plan. That plan was what he and Avalon were double-checking as they rode west. Really, the hole Avalon was going to dig to the Gifted wouldn't have to be too big for a shadow to fit through. And it was Princeton's intention to tie a rope around himself before going in. Then, once inside, he would help the trapped Gifted climb out. It was an idea similar to what Pascal was thinking of, but Princeton's would be a bit easier because a shadow didn't need very much to travel far. In addition, Princeton wondered if he might ever be able to turn others into shadows as well, just by touching them and dragging them into the wall with him. If that were possible, that would make escape even easier! Though he doubted he would've been able to do such a powerful move already... Rope would have to do for now.

"So, you're 100% that this will work?" asked Avalon as their tiny subway cart reached Camp Reed.

"No, but it's worth a shot!" Princeton replied cheerfully, then he hopped off the subway, Avalon following behind with a laugh.

When the two reached the main building, they used their heightened sense of hearing to lead them right to where Pascal, Storm, Theodore, the Mapps, Danielle and her friends and all the others were currently trying to come up with a workable plan to save their friends. It had been a week already. Something had to happen very soon. Princeton was the one to knock at the conference room door.

"Come in!" Pascal called, assuming it would be Dr. Lockewood, Rowan or LaRose. He was mighty surprised then, when, instead, it was Princeton and Avalon who came walking into the little office.

"What are you two doing here? Shouldn't you be back at Camp Heath? Who sent you?" Storm was the first to speak, blue eyes narrowing in suspicion and confusion. The rest followed soon after, asking similar questions of how and why and if the two were even supposed to be here. At last, however, the questions died down and Princeton and Avalon answered as best they could…

"So. You finally found your Gift," Storm was, again, the first to speak. It was the first time Princeton had heard her sound proud of him.

"I guess I have," he replied, raising his own chin in response to her soft remark.

"Iris would be proud," the woman said, though more to herself than to him.

"And you think you'll be able to pull this off?" Northson asked next, voice a little bit sharper than Storm's.

"I don't know," Princeton answered honestly. Northson scoffed a little. "But it's all we got," Princeton insisted bravely.

"He's right, dear," Southlynn whispered to her husband. "It sounds a lot like Pascal's plan anyway. What harm could it be?"

"Oh, just another collapse is all," Northson answered sarcastically. "Or him not being strong enough to make it all the way down, or him not being able to escape his shadow form once he hits the bottom of the-"

"Dad," Westford tried to calm Northson down. Northson glared at him but said nothing.

"Well, I don't know about them, but I'm with ya! It's worth a shot!" Eastla said over her father. Northson growled at her, but that was drowned out too, by Bert and Jason pledging their loyalty as well. Theodore chimed in soon after and so did Danielle, Clemont and Bonnie.

"So, we go forward with the shadow plan?" Avalon asked. Pascal and the others nodded.

"Then let's get started," Princeton insisted, and he gestured for the others to get up and follow him, which they gladly did.

It only took a minute or so to reach the site where LaRose had appeared.

"According to LaRose, the place where the others are would actually be _here_ ," Pascal explained, stepping about 10 yards right. The other Gifted took him at his word and began to work. Avalon created an ice drill and began to drill.

"Wow. Nice," Clemont murmured, both envious and intrigued that ey had been able to create and handle a drill made so fast so well.

"Yours was nice too," Danielle whispered gently as Clemont continued to eye the tool Avalon had made from thin air and willpower alone.

"But it wasn't as nice as Avalon's," Bonnie grinned cheerfully. Danielle and Clemont both glared at her, but neither said anything else as Avalon kept digging and drilling. In time, Rowan helped too, xem being summoned by Bert to come help xyr fellow Gifted out.

Although fire was a bit harder to handle, it did help soften the rock for Avalon to drill through. Of course, there was the obvious danger of using fire and ice together, but it seemed that anything a Gifted created would be harder to destroy than a non-Gifted counterpart. Iris had seen this phenomenon with Kit when ey was unable to heal the things she'd decayed without a lot of effort. In the same way, although Rowan's fire could melt Avalon's ice, it took an unnaturally long time and, if they were really careful, it wouldn't melt that much at all.

After about 25 minutes of slow, steady drilling, Avalon's ice drill had finally pierced a large, empty space.

"There's no more rock in the way!" ey declared, pulling eir very long ice drill back up. Once the entire thing, which looked more like a needle now than anything, was up, it spanned almost 100 feet. A world record for icicle length.

"That's right where the top of the lab should be," Northson and Pascal muttered in unison.

"So what's the next step?" Storm asked, excitement ill-concealed at the thought of seeing Iris again.

"Well, I'm going to have to go in," Princeton replied. "I'm going to fit down that tiny hole and, once I'm inside, see what's down there. If I find anyone, I'll shine my flashlight up and you'll know that you need to send that ice drill back down so I can tie my rope to it," he lifted his shirt to reveal a very long rope tied around his torso. It was so long, in fact, that it went from his hips to his pecs.

"Good luck," Avalon whispered. Princeton gave em a nervous smile in return before looking down at the tiny, coin-sized hole before him. He took a deep breath and began to focus. He studied his shadow on the mountain top, imaging himself becoming a shadow and then slipping through that tiny hole, that little crack, and into the down below. It didn't take more than a minute for his thoughts to become reality. He did it. He was in. Now, it was time to see who all was still alive.


	16. Free at Last

Princeton ended up landing just a few ways away from his quarry. Their estimated target had been pretty spot on. Using the flashlight he'd tucked away in one of his pockets, Princeton began to survey the area. He couldn't help but murmur in sympathy. All the labs were totally destroyed, rock showing through the walls and ceiling, pebbles and boulders littering the floor. There was blood and Bellifer bodies all over. He was currently on the side of the Biology Lab closest to where the Chemistry Lab had stood. It was pure luck that none of the chemicals had caused another explosion during the initial mountain collapse. Or at least, if there _had_ been some chemical mishap, it wasn't noticeable due to the overall destruction the collapse had caused. The trapped Gifted Princeton was looking for were closer to the Earth/Space Lab, so it took Princeton a couple minutes to find them. When he did, however, their faces and eyes lit up.

It took awhile, but Princeton was finally able to calm the rejoicing Gifted down while also trying to keep his own emotions in check.

"Now, guys, I know this is really an emotional moment and all, but we need to get you out of here right now," he said, taking deep breaths.

"You don't say?" Maggie sniffled, trying to sound witty but failing miserably. Princeton smiled in relief at her and Quincy. Quincy smiled back.

"How? And how did you get down here anyway? Why did they send _you_?" Iris was the next person to ask. Princeton gave her a smile as well.

"I _am_ your apprentice, remember?" Princeton replied with a weak laugh. Then he allowed his eyes to glow. Iris' own widened in joy.

"That's wonderful!" she cried weakly. "What is it?"

"Shadow manipulation," Princeton replied. Then he quickly explained.

"So you're going to turn us into shadows to get us back up?" Emma asked curiously once Princeton finished outlining his story.

"I'm not strong enough to do that," Princeton admitted. "But now that I know where you are, I can relay the info back to the upper world and they can figure it out from there. It is our goal to basically lift you guys out via pulley system, but that will require a slightly bigger hole than the one I came in," Princeton paused to smirk dryly, though this joke was understood only by himself.

"So what are you going to do right now?" Scarlet asked, though she already knew the answer.

"I'm going to leave, just for a moment, to tell them and have them start digging a bigger hole for you all," Princeton replied. Scarlet nodded her consent. Some of the others became a little frantic when they caught sight of Princeton leaving, but Scarlet hushed them all. Once silent, they kept their ears peeled and were able to make out Princeton shouting upward, to the rescue squad on the surface world.

"I found them!" he was shouting. "They're alright! But we're going to need to dig a bigger hole! From what I can right now, you should be ok to make that hole right here! There aren't any loose rocks around! Or, if you start digging about a yard to the right, you'll reach a drop off into an empty chamber about 10 feet sooner!" he continued to describe the layout of the ceiling, advising a good place for Avalon and the others to drill. They wanted a place nearby, but not at a place that may cause another collapse. That was part of why Princeton was recommending they dig to the right. There was less stone between the surface and the chamber there, so there was less to go through. They took his advice and dug a new, larger hole. It was still small and tight, but it would be wide enough for everyone to fit. As soon as it was complete, Princeton returned to the others.

"Pack your bags, kids! We're going up!" he grinned and the others cheered in genuine delight, the first signs of true life and hope returning to them.

The trip upwards still took awhile, but it still got done. Iskala was the first to go. Princeton had to try and help guide her up. It was a strange but impressive thing to see. First and foremost, he tied the rope to her hands and wrists and commanded those on the upper world to start pulling. They were literally pulling Iskala up by the wrists. It was a dangerous stunt. But then Princeton went into shadow mode and literally climbed the walls, reaching out to support the rope and Iskala via their shadows, so then Iskala was being raised up by hands and feet, though no one could see the mechanism holding her feet, not that they needed to see to know what (or rather, who) it was.

"Wow!" Emma gushed softly as she watched the dark outline of Princeton inching its way up the walls of the cave, holding fast to Iskala.

"That's so awesome!" Iris agreed feebly, just as excited to train Princeton as he had been a few days ago when he first realized what he could do.

Once Iskala was out, Artimanna went next, then Iris, then Maggie, then Quincy, then Emma, then Scarlet. One by one, they climbed up to freedom and were pulled out of the darkness and into the sunlight. The sunlight! They were free at last!

"Free at last!" Emma literally threw her arms open as she soaked into the warm rays. It was late November, but that didn't stop her from reveling in the sun. Everyone else was doing much the same and reuniting with loved ones. Namely, this was Scarlet and Theodore going full lovey-dovey, mushy-gushy on one another, hugging, kissing, smooching and cooing as they reunited, calling one another every endearing name in the book.

"Oh, honey bunches! Sweetums!" Theodore wept.

"Boo bear! Honey pie! Turtle dove!" Scarlet replied in the same exact tone, except she had that same old heavy accent. The two continued to nuzzle one another and giggle like schoolgirls, trading as many endearing names as possible.

Iris and Storm's reunion, though just as sweet, was far more serious.

"Hey, hey, shhh, shh, it's ok, it's ok, it's alright. I'm still here. You see? I'm still alive. Nothing happened to me, nothing's wrong. Everything's going to be just fine, you'll see," no one had ever heard Iris speak so tenderly and affectionately before. Her voice had taken on a new quality, soft, sweet and caressing. Storm, meanwhile, wasn't making a sound, but the others could see her shaking badly so they knew that she was either crying or suffering some sort of attack. Iris only held her, though, caressing her back slowly and kissing her between affirmations, trying to make sure that Storm understood that they really were together again. It was funny, Storm had managed to keep her cool for the entire week and a half Iris was gone, but now? Everything finally slipped from her control.

Storm's face was buried in Iris' shoulder, even though that required Storm to stoop down quite a bit. Iris could hear her crying a little, but also whispering about just how terrified she'd been in the whole week and a half Iris was trapped underground.

"I was so scared, I was so worried, I thought I would never see you again. I thought that I might've lost you forever…" the taller, older soldier broke off to weep again as her arms continued to twist around and squeeze Iris like twin pythons. Iris didn't mind at all, however, continuing to whisper soft affirmations to her wife between kisses and caresses. Both of them simply enjoyed the physical sensation of the other, reveling in the touches and kisses. A week was a long time to go, the touches were the only thing that kept the two of them grounded, reassuring them of the simple truth that they really, honestly, were all free at last.


	17. Descending the Mountain

But for all the triumphs, there were still plenty of losses abound. Edward and Rexus had to be properly mourned. Nobody wasted any time in calling Oliver and telling her what had happened. Perhaps it seemed cruel to tell her so soon that her brother was dead, but nobody wanted to keep it secret from her, so Pascal was the one to make the dreaded call, Scarlet helping him out. The call wasn't very long or dramatic, but Oliver's mourning was. From the moment she hung up to the moment she was at Camp Reed, staring at her brother's lifeless and mangled body, she was in hysterics, just screaming and crying out her grief. It was a horrible thing to behold and hear. She'd gone off to mourn alone after some time, but all the Gifted could hear her sobs all the way across the camp.

And those who did survive were in desperate need of hospital care. LaRose was nearly fully healed, but Iskala had mentally shut down. Artimanna had nearly died of dehydration. Quincy and Emma were pretty banged up, and Maggie was suffering from an early onset of starvation. And Iris, of course, needed her ribs to be treated. Even though being Gifted meant that he healed faster, broken ribs didn't just mend themselves, and they certainly didn't do it overnight. Jason visited her while she was in the Camp Reed hospital.

"Just like old times, eh?" he asked. "Apprentice saving mentor?"

"Yeah," Iris chuckled. Princeton and Avalon were the only Gifted not in the hospital. "He's a good kid."

"So are you," Jason replied.

"I'm not a kid," she responded, pretending to be offended by what he had said.

"Sure you are, Tiny," Jason smiled despite himself and ruffled her hair. "And I hope your recovering goes well, _kid_."

"Whatever, loser," Iris murmured affectionately. Time had not dimmed their friendship.

Eastla and Westford had also come by to see Iris, Westford being the most awkward with her until Bert came over, then everything changed and Westford had eyes only for him. Just as it should've been. Eastla had been ecstatic to see Iris again, chattering happily with her until her father impatiently called her away. She shot him a death glare but did not argue with him this time. Instead, Iris watched her and Westford leave with a gentle smile, glad that they had come to see and speak with her, even if it was only for a little while. Eastla, enthusiastic as she was to see Iris again, couldn't just chat the day away.

Iris ultimately ended up receiving a plethora of other visitors as well, and those who could not meet her face to face insisted on calling her. The two that called her the longest were Gale and Mae. There were a lot of tears during that latter call, on both ends of it. But the one visitor who came the most often was Storm. Seldom did she leave Iris' side, and she was never gone for long. Iris was more than happy to keep it this way.

"I'll never let you go again," she promised weakly as she kissed Iris' forehead. "I came far too close to losing you down there."

"Oh, Storm, you'll never truly lose me," Iris promised, letting their lips press together.

"I know," Storm responded, voice muffled by her wife's lips. "But I mean I won't let you risk yourself like that again."

"The life of a soldier is never easy," Iris replied. "These are just occupational hazards."

"I know that," said Storm. " _Believe me_ , I know," then she sighed heavily, still not over how close she'd come to never seeing Iris again. Iris gazed up at her sympathetically before rising up to deepen their kiss.

"I love you," she whispered.

"I love you too," Storm whispered back. Five years or not, Iris' heart still fluttered whenever Storm said that simply because it was so rare for the blond to be so openly affectionate, even to Iris. Iris understood it was only in Storm's nature and took no offense to it, but she couldn't deny how special Storm's love made her feel, especially when she knew how rare it was. Theirs was the kind of love wherein those famous three words were seldom spoken, meaning that whenever they _were_ said, the moment was all the more special.

But after about another week, it was finally time to go home. Everyone was healthy enough to leave, so the very last of the soldiers at Camp Reed finally headed out and headed east, descending the mountain, properly this time. The Mapps, plus Danielle's trio, left first.

"We've got a job to get back to," Danielle said apologetically, clutching at her tablet. She'd been able to do a lot of her work through that tablet, but her boss was getting antsy and finally flat out demanded that she come back.

"That's totally ok," Pascal promised. "You, Bonnie and Clemont were such great helps already!"

"Aww shucks!" Clemont blushed, earning a giggle from the two girls beside him.

"Bye, Iris!" Danielle added just before she and Clemont and Bonnie left.

"Bye Danielle!" Iris responded with a smile, giving the girl an awkward hug because Danielle still had her trusty tablet with her. "Thanks for the help!" the tiny brunette added meaningfully, referring to Danielle's frequent hospital visits. Aside from Storm, no one had spent more time with Iris than Danielle. Danielle smiled fondly back at her old friend.

"Any time!" she promised. "And you know how to reach me if you need me," she added, waving her tablet, and both girls shared a laugh. Not much had changed between the two of them even though they hadn't seen one another in many years...

After the end of the previous Bellifer War, some time during the whole mess about what the country was supposed to do with their Gifted soldiers who were currently stuck in Bellifer-mode, the government had sent delegates to every camp to check up on those remaining Gifted. Since Camp Reed had Rexus, the government had sent delegates over there and, somehow, Danielle was discovered. Naturally, finding an underaged soldier hiding in the heart of Camp Reed's mountain, secretly employed by its leader and her deputy, had caused another stir. Luckily, the Mapps were able to escape without getting into too much trouble and Danielle, herself, was quite compliant when she was commanded to go home and back to the old life she had left behind. To be honest, though, as much as she'd enjoyed Camp Reed, the past year had just been so emotionally draining that going home was more of a relief than a punishment.

From that day on, she did go back to normal, civilian life, finishing up her education before getting a job with computers, programming and design. Even after she became old enough to go back to the army legally, she decided that she preferred a career with computers and remained in Denbar. The only times she ever returned to the army were for Iris' wedding to Storm and then Westford's to Bert. With Iris being her friend, Danielle was not at all surprised to be invited and had actually asked if she could help design the wedding since she had taken up this type of design as a hobby. Iris had been fine with letting Danielle pitch in, but Storm had been firmly against such an idea.

"There is no way I'm letting that stupid little kid anywhere near the wedding plans!" Storm had told Iris firmly when Iris made the suggestion, and that had been that. But of course, Danielle had still come to the wedding, tablet on her arm as usual. Jason had stolen it some time during the reception and, when Danielle got it back, it had been stuffed into a tiny tuxedo with a sticky note on the screen that said "Danielle's date". Although Danielle had been less than amused, everyone else found it so funny that it happened again when Danielle attended Bert and Westford's wedding.

That had been one wedding she did get to help design, Westford having heard her remark wistfully about how she'd wished she could've helped with Iris' wedding. Although Westford didn't know Danielle very well at all, he still knew enough about her to agree that she deserved to help out if she wanted to. She had the skills and she had been such an asset in the war that this was the least anyone could do to pay her back. Besides, from what Westford did know, Danielle sounded like she was a good kid anyway, so there really was no reason for him to say no. It had been at this wedding when Iris last met Danielle face to face before the two parted ways, each going back to their separate homes.

Now, several years later, the two were face to face once more, though under very different circumstances than a wedding. But now it was time for the two old friends to part once more.

"Good luck with whatever your next unfinished project will be," Iris teased right before Danielle could leave entirely.

"Hey! I just have a lot of good ideas!" Danielle argued, becoming really defensive really fast. Although she was fully an adult now, there were still moments of childishness within her when she would protest vehemently against any accusation held against her if she disagreed. This hit, from Iris, about Danielle's inability to finish an old project before starting a new one, was one of the accusations Danielle hated most, though it wasn't untrue.

"Pity I never get to see any of them come to fruition," Iris replied cheekily, sticking her tongue out at Danielle. Danielle returned the gesture before Clemont called out to her, telling her that they really should get going.

After that, Danielle sing-songed one last goodbye before darting away after Clemont. Before she was entirely gone, Iris managed to catch a glimpse of her face as she ran to Clemont and what she saw was a massive smile. That girl was head-over-heels for that boy, as anyone could see! (Though admittedly, Jason liked to joke around that Danielle and her tablet made a better ship than Danielle and Clemont. Danlet over Clemelle, as he had said once, making up those stupid portmanteaus for Danielle and her two love-interests).

Next to go were Scarlet and Theodore, eager to go home and reclaim their leadership from the Powers. The Powers had led loyally and welcomed the Camp Reed soldiers in just fine, but Scarlet and Theodore were still dying to get home. They were still, technically, the real leaders of camp and they felt bad, leaving their deputies to deal with such an unusual situation alone.

"We owe it to them and our guests to go back and help out," Scarlet had said as she and Theodore made their exit from the Camp Reed mountain. They, of course, had thanked Pascal heartily for helping them, but they were still in an obvious hurry to go.

Then, one by one, all the Gifted started descending the mountain as well, recovering at various speeds. Artimanna went home first. Though she'd nearly died of dehydration, her physical injuries weren't too terrible and she was able to go back to her home in Denbar just a day after Danielle and her two companions had gone back. Oliver, Emma and Rowan were sent to Camp Steuben with LaRose and Maggie once all four of them were properly healed and then Quincy and Iskala were sent back to Camp Heath once they had recovered too. Avalon and Princeton, having been unscathed since they never got trapped in the mountain, had been ordered home after getting to make sure all their friends were ok. It had been upon Storm's insistence, her wanting all of her soldiers to be back home ASAP.

"I know you want to stay and watch Iris recover," she told the two Gifted soldiers. "But I really need you two to go home now. I need as few people here as possible in case anything else happens and I need as many people back home as possible so that we can get a head count and make sure everyone is present and accounted for," she finished and Princeton and Avalon, though they disliked it, saw the logic in Storm's words.

Soon, the only ones left in Camp Reed were Dr. Lockewood, Jason, Eastla, Storm and Iris. Even Pascal had gone at last, leaving early to help Scarlet, Theodore and the Powers sisters to look after the relocated Camp Reed.

"Sorry to have kept you waiting," Iris said as she finally rose from her hospital bed, ready to go at last.

"Nonsense!" Dr. Lockewood cried, still very fond of the tiny girl. "You were recovering!"

"Don't apologize," Eastla and Jason agreed. Eastla walked to one side of Iris while Storm took her other side. Jason brought up the rear, making sure everything was shut down, while Dr. Lockewood took the lead. The small group finished shutting down what they could before descending the mountain. They boarded the subway without a single look back at the abandoned mountain they were leaving behind.

"I can't wait to see mom again!" Iris sighed deeply as they rode the subway off. Adult or not, she was still insistent that Mae was her Mama, and she missed her mother very much. Those daily calls would be nothing on getting to actually see and hug her again. Iris couldn't wait!

"She can't wait to see you either," Storm remarked dryly, thinking about the daily calls from the tiny blond. Although she and Mae had long since made their peace, there were still moments when Storm disdained the softened, worry-wart of a woman. Iris rolled purple eyes at her wife.

"She's still not as bad as my mom," Jason grinned.

"You know it's only because I love you," Dr. Lockewood replied.

"Yes, Ma," Jason pretended to groan, but he was still grinning.

"Trust me, I understand," Eastla chimed in. Southlynn wasn't nearly as protective as Mae or Dr. Lockewood, but she was just as affectionate.

"Honestly, is there anyone here who didn't have a Smother?" Westford joked.

"I didn't," Storm grunted, dampening the mood. Iris elbowed her in response. Although it was true that Storm's own mother had been very callous and indifferent towards Storm, it was clear Storm was over it. She'd only made this remark to make everyone else uncomfortable, which it did.

"You still have my mother," Iris reminded and Storm gave something between a smile and a grimace.

Two hours later, Iris and Storm dismounted the subway and bade farewell to those still on board. After the goodbyes were given, however, Storm's amicable grin turned into a disgusted sigh.

"I hate Camp Reed!" she grunted.

"No you don't," Iris replied knowingly.

"Yes I do," argued Storm, but Iris only shook her head smugly. She knew that while Storm complained about Camp Reed, and the Mapps, the blond actually held them in high esteem. She admired Eastla, liked Dr. Lockewood, tolerated Westford and even respected Jason, despite bad-mouthing all of them at least once.

Her disdain for Camp Reed was just an old, almost-inside joke because Storm, being a more physical being, didn't always enjoy the intense amount of thought and debate that went on in that mountain. That wasn't to say Storm was stupid or disinterested in learning and education, she just didn't like the way Camp Reed did it. To her, it seemed that they were either self-righteous snobs who were too proud of their own intelligence, or they were semi-crazy eccentrics. Neither was a type of person Storm liked.

"No you don't," Iris repeated cheekily, nudging her wife as they walked towards Camp Heath's tall archway. She would get Storm to admit her genuine affection for Camp Reed eventually.

"Let's not talk about them now," Storm sighed. "Let's talk about a far better camp," her sigh turned into a smirk, then she quickly swept Iris off her feet again and carried the giggling girl out into the wintery sun that graced all of Camp Heath.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Peace out, Penguinlover611, your character won't be back for quite a while more!


	18. All Hail

The rest of the month of December was filled with relief as things slowly returned to normal.

"You can't keep doing this to me!" Mae wailed the moment she was able to get her arms around Iris again.

"Ma! I said I was sorry!" Iris cried embarrassedly as Mae crushed her in a hug. Mae was, admittedly, being a bit overdramatic, but she didn't care.

"I don't care!" she cried. "I'm just so glad you're safe because I was so worried! Oh! Don't you ever do that again, young lady! Do you hear?" she continued to cry and shout and hug Iris to death, though she was careful not to upset Iris' ribs. But she continued to make a scene, babbling on about how Iris needed to spend a lot more time in the sun to make up for her week and a half in the dark. Storm, meanwhile, watched the whole thing in amusement. Or at least, she did until Mae dragged her into a hug of her own, alternating between consoling her, thanking her for saving Iris, and getting mad that she hadn't come home at all in Iris' weeklong absence.

"I hate you," Storm mouthed to Iris as Mae hugged her tightly. Iris only laughed in response.

But while Iris and Storm were getting their ears chewed off by Mae, Princeton wasn't fairing much better. His dads were both marvelously supportive of his self-discovery, but both his sisters had insisted upon actually coming out to visit and giving him a hard time about it.

"You didn't tell me first?!" Priscilla cried "And you didn't even at least call?! You jerk! I should've been first to know! And you didn't even call!" she stomped a foot, crossed her arms, and pouted like someone 10 years younger. "You didn't even call!"

"Yeah, seriously, dude," Pearl crossed her arms. "Not cool at all."

"Well sorry if I was busy trying to save Denbar!" Princeton said defensively.

"Seriously though, not even one little call to tell us you were still alive and not one of the people trapped down below?" Pearl sneered, but then Princeton saw the genuine fear in her eyes and he knew at once how scared she really had been.

"I'm sorry," he promised, defensive stance becoming submissive. "You're right. I should've called. But I was too caught up in everything else."

"Whatever," Pearl replied, but then when he initiated the hug and it took Pearl less than half a second to reciprocate it.

"Hey! No fair!" Priscilla interrupted the moment, butting her way into Princeton's arms. Princeton and Pearl both rolled their eyes but they allowed Priscilla to join the Cross Kids hug and listened her to continually huff out her indignant wrath.

"He doesn't call! He doesn't tell! He doesn't keep in touch! He doesn't keep promises! The nerve of him!"

But aside from awkward family reunions, everything else flowed pretty smoothly. Storm was welcomed back after her hiatus and Gale was more than happy to see her again, relieving his control at once.

"Welcome home!" he grinned, thumping the blond on the back.

"Thanks!" she responded, thumping him too.

"Ooof!" he cried as her slap actually pushed him forward.

"Baby," the blond snorted.

"Whatever," Gale grinned back, nudging her arm.

"How are our guest leaders?" Storm asked next. Gale's face fell. Oh, right. Storm had never gotten the chance to learn this, what with the mountain collapse and all. Barry and Angelina were dead, the first having pretty much been eaten alive by a Bellifer and the other dying when the mountain collapsed. It was a tough blow for Tanya, to say the least. To lose her deputy, a Gifted and, most importantly, her wife all within the same timeframe. Storm was especially sympathetic to that third plight, but was selfishly glad that she had not lost her wife the same way Tanya had.

"Aside from all that, though, Tanya's doing ok," Gale concluded at the end of the story, but it was clear from the pain on his face that Tanya was not ok at all. At the moment, her face was unreadable as she surveyed her soldiers dutifully. She might've looked composed then, but Storm hadn't seen what Gale had. She hadn't seen Tanya going hysterical in mourning. She hadn't seen Tanya screaming and crying, alternating between sobbing and throwing whatever she could at anything that would hold still for more than five seconds. It was only the fact that her soldiers still needed her that kept her from going entirely insane, though everyone could tell that she was close.

Storm grimaced in pain, having grown genuinely fond of the woman. Besides, she still remembered how close Tanya had been with Tempest. Any friend of Tempest was at least an ally of Storm's.

"Yeah, like I said, she didn't take well to losing Edward, but she was definitely glad to see Iskala and Quincy again," Gale smiled at the memory. Seeing at least two of her Gifted come back had incited the first real smile from Tanya since before that treacherous mountain battle. Of course, she had wept for Edward, and then for Barry and Angelina again, but her relief at having Iskala and Quincy was powerful enough to make her forget her grief at least for a couple of hours. It was better than nothing. Besides, maybe Quincy and Iskala could help her get her life back on track.

"Speaking of which, how is Iskala?" Storm asked off-handedly. The last time she'd seen the feisty woman, she had been in the hospital, her eyes wide and staring, but entirely empty and unseeing. She knew Quincy was ok, but what of Iskala? Poor girl. Edward's death had broken her, and maybe irreversibly so. And Storm knew that empty, haunted look. It had been the one she and Mae had worn when she thought Iris would never snap out of her Gifted state, it was the one Rusty had worn whenever he mentioned Clover, it was the one Gale had worn when he'd seen what had happened to Tempest. That thousand-yard stare was something Storm was too used to, and seeing it upon Iskala had been disturbing. Storm may not have known Iskala very well, but she still wanted to know if the girl was doing any better.

"She's… Well..." Gale made a weak noise in the back of his throat and Storm knew at once that the way Iskala looked now wouldn't have been too different from what she remembered. She felt sympathetic for Iskala. She really was such a brave and brilliant soldier. It wasn't fair for her to have to be going through this! And it really was quite tragic. But, at the same time, Storm didn't have time to personally look after the girl or share some kind of heart-to-heart with her. Storm could only hope that Iskala would recover eventually before turning her attention back to more important things in Camp Heath. There was still a bit left to do in the Bellifer department, after all.

Even though the last majority of the Bellifers did die in the cave collapse, there were still a few loose in the underground and squads had to be sent into hunt and kill them before they could start reproducing. The Bellifer reproduction cycle might've been slow, but no one wanted to let them live. And then of course, Camp Greene and Reed needed to be repaired so that their soldiers could go home again. That took a combined effort from both the army and Denbar itself. And it was even harder with it being the middle of December, the world coated in snow and ice. But still, no one wanted to wait around if they had to and it was all hands on deck as soon as possible, soldiers and civilians alike coming out to help.

"Were we really that bad to them?" Storm joked when Tanya sent another hoard of her soldiers up north to try and fix Camp Greene.

"They're just trying to go home," said Gale. "Now that they know the danger is over for real this time, you can see they're reluctant to stay."

"Yeah," agreed Storm. "But I can't blame them. Their pride must be sore from having to leech off of us for like two months."

"Really," Gale snorted despite himself. "I've never met a more stuck up camp!" and the two shared a brief laugh at Camp Greene's expense.

But even though Camp Greene had already stayed two months with Camp Heath, it still took a few more to fix everything. And Camp Reed had an even harder time. Along with it being far more difficult to fix a mountain, the poor camp ended up suffering a bit of a setback. It all happened when someone let Clemont lead one of the construction teams because the foolish young man had tried to create a whole bunch of demolition bots and every single one of them ended up exploding. Luckily, though, the damage had been superficial, just like with Tunnelby.

"Idiot," Storm remarked when she heard that Clemont had nearly blown up Camp Reed's mountain again.

"Don't be too hard on him," Iris replied good naturedly and Storm only rolled her eyes.

"I just can't believe that, with a track record like his, they keep letting him build robots," she insisted. "How has he not been fired yet?"

"He tries," Iris defended again. "So just try to not be so mean about him."

"Make me," Storm replied immaturely, in far better spirits ever since Iris came home.

"Ok," Iris played along, then she pulled the blond in for a kiss. Just as planned, it shut her up for a good long time.

Then at last, the end of December hit, and even though it was bitterly cold, the warmth of friendship filled the air and excitement kept things hot as the apprentices of July finally became soldiers. Princeton was among them. His shadow powers were still very weak, having only been active for about a month, but he had been practicing long and hard and it was clear that he was immensely proud of them and himself. Iris felt the same way. He was such a great boy and she was proud that he had not only finally found himself, but that he was getting to enjoy the same honor she had enjoyed nearly a decade ago too. The soldier ceremony!

Tanya and Storm both officiated, the apprentices winning a double honor before becoming full soldiers. Princeton was presented last, but his ceremony was definitely the largest due to the massive cheers the young man got from both camps. Quincy was nearly beside himself and Emma and Maggie, who had insisted upon watching via computer call, were equally in ecstasy. Princeton himself was pretty stoked, but what made his night the greatest was what Iris did…

"Before we close this ceremony, I would like to thank Princeton personally, in front of all of you, for all of his brave and noble deeds!" she cried. Cheers echoed the dining hall. "I am proud to be his mentor, but not just because he has displayed excellent character and an awesome Gift, though he most certainly has!" she continued. "What makes me proudest of all is how much like me he is. I say, let it be tradition that every purple-eyed Gifted apprentice of Camp Heath go save their mentor by sneaking out of camp at least once!" the tiny brunette finished. Cheers, this time coupled with laughter, filled the dining hall. Iris could see Storm masking a laugh behind her hand, trying to look more annoyed than amused.

It was then that Iris stepped down, but before the celebrations could start, Avalon interrupted too, suddenly showering Princeton in hail.

"Hey! What was that for?!" Princeton demanded, sputtering from the cold while everyone else howled with laughter.

"All hail!" Avalon replied with a smirk, cyan eyes glowing like twin fires.

"What?" Princeton repeated, angrily wiping the hail from his shirt.

"All hail!" Avalon repeated, then eir smile widened and ey raised eir arms and voice. "ALL HAIL, THE PRINCE OF THE SHADOWS!" ey cried, then the whole rest of the dining hall echoed the call, laughing at Avalon's clever puns. Princeton, meanwhile, continued to try and look annoyed at Avalon, but he began to blush and quail under the cheers of his comrades and he quickly took his seat beside Quincy, head still down.

"Well, not bad, _Prince of the Shadows_ ," Quincy teased as the smaller boy blushed.

"Oh, not you too!" Princeton moaned, but Quincy only laughed, slapping Princeton's back heartily as the celebrations began.

But following the party, when everyone was finally sent off to bed, Iris had one last thing for her ex-apprentice. A box.

"What is it?" Princeton asked as he took the box from Iris.

"Open it and see," Iris replied with a smile. Princeton did so and his purple eyes widened when he saw what was inside. It was a small dagger, entirely black, with two purple gemstones on the hilt, though one was a darker shade than the other. It was her graduation gift to him.

"Is this one like-?" he began, still staring into the little box at the black blade inside.

"Just like mine," Iris patted her hip, her silver version of the same sword hanging from her waist in its dagger form.

"It's beautiful," Princeton took the black blade from the box and pressed the hilt. The blade extended. "Wow!"

"I'm glad you like it," Iris responded gently as he waved it around happily.

"I love it!" he promised. Iris smiled at him.

"Good, I'm proud of you and I want to thank you again for saving me," she said.

"Well, it's what we do here at Camp Heath. We save our mentors and go AWOL from our camps multiple times in the first six months alone," Princeton responded with a laugh, then the two parted there, one going to her little cabin on the edge of the training forest while the other moved into his new home in the soldiering cabin. It started hailing later that night, but Princeton was fairly sure that it wasn't Avalon this time, though one could never tell with someone like em. Either way, though, it was a very good night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: I'm sorry this took so incredibly long to get out, but I've been working on other things. Now I'm formally announcing an indefinite hiatus on this story. IDK when I'll get back to it, but I promise I will finish it eventually. For now though, peace out!
> 
> End of Part 1. I have two more planned, but this is where things get a bit shaky. IDK why, but I had a really tough time writing the rest of this story. Plots refused to come to me, and "frustrating" doesn't even begin to cover it!


End file.
